Edmonton Minute: Food Waste, Homelessness Meeting, and Terrorism Charges Laid

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

This Week In Edmonton:

• City Hall remains mostly closed to the public (more on that below) and, as a result, this week’s meetings will again be virtual. The first meeting on the agenda is a City Council Public Hearing, beginning this morning at 9:30 am, to address a few zoning amendments. On Tuesday, at 9:30 am, there will be a City Council meeting. On the agenda are Capital and Operating Financial Updates. (We’ll have more to say about the state of the City’s finances in the coming weeks). Council will receive a verbal update on the Transit Safety Plan and the Downtown Core, as well as a report regarding the establishment of off-leash dog areas. They will also discuss imposing a special tax for the repair and maintenance of Alley Lighting. Recall that last year, they collected too much, and decided not to give it back. If this meeting does not conclude on Tuesday, it will continue on Wednesday at 9:30 am.
  
  
• On Thursday, at 1:30 pm there will be a City Auditor Recruitment Committee meeting. The agenda includes, you guessed it, recruiting a full time City Auditor. We’ve had an interim auditor since April 2023.
  
  
• The Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital is looking for more dog therapy volunteers. Up to 10 more dog-handler teams are needed to volunteer an hour of their time a week. Volunteers must provide their own dogs, who do not have to be fully certified as service dogs, but do have to have a behavioural assessment completed.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• Terrorism charges were laid by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) against the former security guard who attacked City Hall in January. It’s alleged that Bezhani Sarvar fired a rifle and used a Molotov cocktail, leaving bullet holes in walls and destroying six glass banisters and a window. The estimated repair cost is $100,000, but thankfully, no one was injured. Meanwhile City Hall is undergoing a number of security upgrades, and has partially reopened for students and events. Private events, starting with the Edmonton Police Service graduation, were allowed to resume, and City Hall School, a week-long program teaching grade 1 and 2 students about civic government, will also be able to take place. City staff can return, but the general public is not allowed inside just yet. The City has been updating security protocols which include the installation of several metal detectors. Mayor Amarjeet Sohi says the new measures are meant to be as non-intrusive as possible.
  
  
• Four levels of government met to discuss homelessness in Edmonton. The meeting involved Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, Alberta's Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services Jason Nixon, federal Minister of Housing Sean Fraser, and Grand Chief Cody Thomas of the Confederacy of Treaty 6. This marked the first time that four orders of government have collaborated on the issue. The meeting focused on improving coordination, reducing duplication, making national housing strategy funding more accessible, and expediting affordable housing construction.
  
  
• It was revealed that, in 2022, Edmonton disposed of over 11,500 tonnes of food waste in landfills due to contamination or processing losses, with a similar projection for 2023. Of the 66,000 tonnes of food scraps collected from homes using green bins, much was diverted from landfills, but a significant portion ended up in landfills due to contamination or being mixed with garbage or recycling. The City plans to conduct a waste sorting study in 2025 to evaluate the effectiveness of waste separation by residents, and plans for increased capacity by 2027 are being discussed.

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