Edmonton Minute: Fringe Festival, Boulevard Gardening, and a River Valley Petition

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

This Week In Edmonton:

• The Agenda Review Committee will meet on Tuesday at 8:30 am. Council will return from summer vacation on August 21st.
  
  
• Tickets sales for the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival are off to a strong start, and are selling quickly. There are too many acts to list, but a full schedule can be found online. Tickets for Fringe performances remain relatively accessible at between $9 and $18, plus a $3 fee. The Festival runs from August 17th to 27th.
  
  
• Due to Canadian government legislation, much of the news content we share and comment on is being blocked on Facebook. We’ll have more information about our future plans in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, be sure to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, where we’re still posting regularly.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• We launched a petition to Keep Ottawa Out Of Our River Valley. If you haven’t heard, the Urban Planning Committee voted to move ahead to the planning phase of establishing a National Urban Park in the River Valley. The federal government has been pushing Parks Canada to expand their role from "traditional" national parks, into national urban parks, in order to expand their influence. Council as a whole will be discussing this issue when they return from summer break, and we want to stop this proposal in its early stages. If you haven’t had a chance to sign the petition yet, you can do so here. We’ll be personally presenting it to Council, so encourage your friends to sign too!
  
  
• The City has had 123 applications for the Residential Boulevard Gardening Program, a program that allows residents to create a garden space on the boulevard land in front of their house. The aim of the program, now in its second year, is to beautify neighbourhood streets. Many people have been gardening on this land, known as “boulevarding” for years, technically illegally. Now, there are two permit types available - an automatically approved low-impact permit, and another for more ambitious projects that include things like benches and raised flower beds. No one has applied for the more complicated program yet. Guess people don’t really want to take care of City property for free…
  
  
• The Alberta Indigenous Games kicked off, with 5,000 youth registered to participate. The first-ever Alberta Indigenous Games were held in Edmonton in 2011 and only 300 youth competed that first year. Now, the 10-day event is significantly larger, and roughly 20,000 people are expected to come to Edmonton to spectate and participate. While 92% of the athletes are from Alberta, the games are open to any Indigenous youth, so teams and athletes from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Québec will be participating too. There are 18 sports represented, including some new additions this year like skateboarding and flag football. The Games run until August 19th.

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