Edmonton Minute: Extreme Cold, Snow Failures, and Is The Gondola A Boondoggle

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

This Week In Edmonton:

• City Hall's agenda is completely jam-packed this week. On Monday, City Council meets at 9:30 am to consider the Gondola project and EPCOR water rates, amongst a 24 item agenda. The City Auditor Recruitment Committee meets at 1:00 pm and the City Manager and City Auditor Performance Evaluation Committee will meet at 5:30 pm.
  
  
• On Tuesday, we kick off with the Agenda Review Committee at 9:00 am followed by a City Council Public Hearing at 1:30 pm to consider various zoning amendments. On Wednesday, we have the continuation of the City Council Meeting (if it doesn't conclude on Monday) at 9:30 am, followed by a special (ie: Non-Regular) Council Meeting at 1:30 pm, for which no agenda has been released yet.
  
  
• On Thursday at 9:30 am, we have a special Executive Committee meeting to consider some city appointments, followed by a special Community and Public Services Committee where the Committee will consider who to appoint to various boards and commissions. Finally, on Friday the Urban Planning Committee will also hold a special meeting to, again, consider who to appoint to the boards and commissions that they oversee.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• Common Sense Edmonton published a detailed analysis of Edmonton's snow and ice control program audit. The short version is that complaints to the city are skyrocketing, the City doesn't keep any meaningful statistics to track how they're doing and where they could improve. Also, for reasons unknown, the City schedules regular annual snowplow maintenance during the winter when the equipment is needed, rather than during the summer when it isn't. Yeah, we don't get it either.
  
  
• City Council remains split over the possible Prairie Sky Gondola proposal. While the developer claims this proposal will not cost taxpayers any money, some councillors aren't convinced, noting that the City would be on the hook should the company fail, and that several statements from the project's proponents seem to suggest they do want public subsidies, despite their constant claims otherwise.
  
  
• An investigation is underway after City Police ordered homeless Edmontonians out of an LRT station into the extreme cold. Mayor Iveson has asked City Staff to prepare and bring back a report on the City's extreme-weather protocols and whether they were being followed properly.

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