Edmonton Minute: Data Breach, Hospital Expansion, and Police Tech Funding

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

This Week In Edmonton:

• Today, at 9:30 am, there will be a City Council meeting. On the agenda are Capital and Operating Financial Updates, as well as ​​the Edmonton Business Improvement Areas 2023 Budgets. Council will also discuss designating St. Luke's Anglican Church as a Municipal Historic Resource.
  
  
• On Tuesday, at 9:30 am, there is an Audit Committee meeting. The Committee will discuss the City Governance of Fort Edmonton Park audit, the Enforcement Services Management and Support audit, and the Office of the City Auditor’s 2023 Annual Work Plan, among other items. Later in the day, at 1:30 pm, there will be a Public Hearing regarding multiple zoning and land use amendments.
  
  
• Budget deliberations continue this week with meetings of City Council on Wednesday at 9:30 am and Friday at 9:30 am. Specific agendas for each day are not yet available. Discussions are expected to continue until December 16th.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• The Edmonton Police Service asked Council for additional capital funding to the tune of $99 million over the next four years - $50 million more than what has been allotted. They say the money is to maintain and upgrade IT systems, as well as add in-car video to all police vehicles. That last point is interesting, as Council had already given EPS money for dash cams, but in June, EPS requested to spend that money on an IT project instead. Must be nice to be able to spend money allocated for one thing on something completely different, and then just go back and ask for more taxpayer money whenever you need it, eh?
  
  
• Around 5,000 City workers had their personal data compromised and downloaded onto a personal cloud-based account. It was revealed that a former City employee accessed the personal information of their colleagues in May 2021 and downloaded records like employee discipline reports, settlement agreements, union seniority and retirees lists, and Alberta human rights complaints. An investigation has so far shown that no misuse of the records has occurred.
  
  
• Health Minister Jason Copping toured the Misericordia Community Hospital’s new emergency room. The new and improved ER includes a $65 million expansion and is triple the physical size of the current ER. It will have capacity for 60,000 patients per year - far more than the 25,000 patients per year it was intended to hold when it was built in 1969, or even the 50,000 patients per year it's sometimes been stretched to. There will also be a separate, dedicated waiting room for mental-health patients, as well as large windows with natural light. The ER is set to open by Fall of 2023.

-----

Donate:

Common Sense Edmonton doesn't accept any government funding and never will. We think you should be free to choose, for yourself, which organizations to support. If you're in a position to contribute financially, you can make a donation here.

-----

Share:

If you're not in a position to donate, we understand, but if you appreciate our work, you can help by spreading our message. Please email this post to your friends, share it on Facebook or Twitter, and help make sure every Edmontonian knows what's really going on at City Hall.