Edmonton Minute: Mandate Extended, Valley Vehicles, and the Urban Municipalities Convention

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

This Week In Edmonton:

• Council will kick things off today with a meeting of the Urban Planning Committee from 9:30 am to 10:45 am, where they will discuss Heritage Buildings and receive a report on the National Urban Park Program. Then, at 11:00 am the Community and Public Services Committee will meet until 5:00 pm to discuss an 11 item agenda. Concurrently, from 12:15 pm to 1:15 pm, the Council Services Committee will meet to discuss some housekeeping items.
  
  
• On Tuesday, the Agenda Review Committee will meet from 9:00 am to 9:30 am, followed at 1:30 pm by the Executive Committee which will discuss several bridge replacement projects as well as the plan for the City's Homeless Response this winter.
  
  
• The 2021 AUMA Convention is set to take place November 17th - 19th, in person, at the Edmonton Convention Centre. The AUMA is the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association - think of it as a kind of union for city governments. Their convention is set to hold discussions on a variety of topics including strategic planning, "working the bureaucracy", cyber security, and drug decriminalization. Premier Jason Kenney, Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver, and NDP leader Rachel Notley are all set to attend and give speeches.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• Despite the number of active COVID-19 infections dramatically falling in the City, Council voted to extend its mask mandate. The mandate was originally set to expire last Thursday, based on a metric of fewer than 100 cases per 100,000 for more than 10 days - criteria that the City itself had imposed. Instead, Council passed a new bylaw that removes the metrics entirely and extends the mask bylaw indefinitely.
  
  
• The CEO of the company that wants to build a gondola over the river valley says that a new report shows that his proposed gondola over the river valley is a good idea and makes financial sense. Unfortunately, the report showing this is not being released publicly, so we can't actually check any of these claims. We’ve been given repeated assurances that no public money will be used on this project, but we still have our doubts about that, and refusing to release this report isn't a great sign.
  
  
• Finally, the City selected Hyundai Rotem Company to build 40 light-rail vehicles for the Valley Line LRT costing between $260 million and $390 million. The contract is expected to be finalized next month, with the delivery of the train cars due in 2025 as part of the Valley Line West LRT expansion. Let’s hope this goes better than the Thales rail signalling system!

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