Edmonton Minute: Plastic Petition, Community Name, and a City Hall Shooting

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

This Week In Edmonton:

• Most of the meetings originally scheduled at City Hall for this week are cancelled due to last week's shooting at City Hall. (More on that below!). Cancelled meetings include a City Council Public Hearing, a City Council meeting, and a Special City Council meeting. The City says these meetings will be rescheduled as soon as possible.
  
  
• The one meeting not cancelled this week is a meeting of the Agenda Review Committee, which will take place on Tuesday at 8:30 am.
  
  
• The Oliver Community League, which represents the city's most populous neighbourhood, will petition City Council to change its name to Wîhkwêntôwin, Cree for "a circle of friends." This decision follows years of debate over the legacy of the community's namesake, Frank Oliver. The new name was proposed by Elder Jerry Saddleback and is set for review by the Executive Committee on February 7th, with the full City Council debate scheduled for February 20th. The decision to rename specific buildings and institutions associated with Oliver will be left to their respective decision-makers.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• Charges were laid after Bezhani Sarvar, a 28-year-old man employed as a security guard by the Commissionaires, fired shots and threw a Molotov cocktail in City Hall. He was detained by an unarmed security guard - a fellow Commissionaires employee and former Canadian army infantryman - until police arrived. Dale McFee, Chief of the Edmonton Police Service, said that national security police are investigating the incident and reviewing a manifesto video possibly related to it. Safety protocols at City Hall are set to change, and damages to the building are estimated at $100,000, but thankfully, no one was harmed in the incident.
  
  
• A Council Committee approved an increase to single-use bag fees. Paper bags will go from 15 cents to 25 cents and reusable bags from $1 to $2 on July 1st, 2024. There were a couple of other options on the table for debate - delaying the increase by a year, not increasing the fees at all, and increasing fees for retail bags but not fast food bags. Unfortunately, the option they didn’t consider was to get rid of the bylaw (and the fees!) altogether. We're currently running a petition calling on Council to eliminate the bylaw. If you agree, and you haven't signed it yet, please join us to Stop The Plastic Ban.
  
  
• The City announced support for local businesses through a Winter Patio Grant, providing over $40,000 to create outdoor winter spaces at restaurants, bars, and cafes. The grant, which exceeded its initial budget due to high demand, offered up to $2,000 per business for eligible winter patio expenses. In alignment with the City's WinterCity Strategy and Vibrant Streets Program, 27 businesses were awarded the grant for the 2023-24 period.

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