Edmonton Minute: Merry Christmas, Extreme Weather, and Budget Deliberations Complete

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

This Week In Edmonton:

• It's Christmas this upcoming Saturday! From Will, Joel, Peter and all of our team of volunteers, have a Merry Christmas. Thank you to every single one of our readers, donors, and everyone who said a kind word to us this year. We appreciate every single one of you and hope you have an excellent Christmas. Happy Holidays!
  
  
• The City Council and associated committees are on holiday until January 4th, when the Agenda Review Committee will meet. However, unless that Committee makes changes, City Hall won’t get back to full-time business until the week of January 17th.
  
  
• If you haven’t had a chance, you can check out the Legislature Christmas Lights this week or many other displays across the city such as the lights at the zoo or Candy Cane Lane on 148th Street near Stony Plain Road.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• Council finalized the Fall 2022 supplemental budget adjustments on Friday. While an item-by-item breakdown isn’t available yet, City Council is saying "No" to a planned $12 million increase to the Police Service budget. The increase was changed to $1 million. City Council also approved a big-ticket item, the Lewis Farms Recreation Centre, which will cost a cool $283 million. Sadly, the City will add the $283 million to the debt load with no specific way to pay for this large item. Stay tuned for our item-by-item breakdown coming soon.
  
  
• As temperatures plummeted across the Capital and region, Edmonton activated its extreme weather response plan. This plan includes dedicated bus routes to get people to shelters, as well as increasing emergency shelter spaces during the day and overnight. The cold temperatures moderated slightly over the weekend but the cold weather response is expected to last until at least Dec 31st.
  
  
• The developer of the former Domtar site in northeast Edmonton has indicated that the next area of residential development could begin in 2023, now that Alberta Environment and Parks has laid out soil remediation criteria for the area. Much of the site has sat fenced off since 2018 when houses that had been built on the first development site received letters that their houses were near contaminated soil. An AHS study into elevated cancer rates in the area is ongoing.

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