Edmonton Minute: Carding Banned, Alarming Finances, and a New City Manager

Edmonton Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Edmonton politics

This Week In Edmonton:

• City Council is taking it a bit easier this week. After spending much of last week on budget discussions, there is no Council Meeting scheduled, though there will be two Committee meetings.
  
  
• On Tuesday at 9:30 am, the Agenda Review Committee will meet to set the agenda for future council meetings.
  
  
• On Friday at 3:00 pm, the Emergency Advisory Committee will receive another verbal report on COVID 19. As with last week, no other details of this meeting, or what might be contained in the verbal report, have been provided yet. So much for transparency!

Last Week In Edmonton:

• The City announced it has hired a new City Manager, Andre Corbould, who is currently serving as the Province's Deputy Minister of Education. Corbould will take over the position from Interim City Manager, Adam Laughlin, on January 18th, 2021. Prior to working for the provincial government, Andre served for almost 30 years in the Canadian Armed Forces. We know the City will have many difficult financial decisions ahead, and we wish him the best.
  
  
• As we reported earlier in the week, the City Auditor released an alarming report entitled "City Financial Condition Review". In short, the City is much worse off financially than it was 20 years ago, and operating spending is now 36% higher, even after accounting for inflation and population growth. That's an extra $680 million this year alone - clearly, it's time for some fiscal discipline at City Hall! You can read our in-depth analysis for more details.
  
  
• We were very pleased to see 'carding' (street stops without reasonable cause) banned in Alberta by the Province. The government also introduced new regulations for 'street checks' (street stops with reasonable cause). Edmonton Police Service did recently report to the City that street checks have decreased by 48% in the first 6 months of this year, though this could have easily been an anomaly caused by the pandemic.

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