Edmonton Minute: Valley Line, Employee Tickets, and a New Surgical Facility

Edmonton Minute: Valley Line, Employee Tickets, and a New Surgical Facility

 

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

 

This Week In Edmonton:

  • This morning, at 9:30 am, there will be a City Council Public Hearing to deal with more than a dozen land use amendments.

  • There is a lengthy agenda for the City Council meeting taking place on Tuesday at 9:30 am. The agenda includes a Capital Financial Update, an Operating Financial Update, a report on the Edmonton Water Treatment Plants Flood Mitigation Project, and Tax Forgiveness Options for the YWCA, to name just a few items. There are also several private reports, including a Public Safety and Community Response Task Force Update, and a Valley Line Contractual Update. There are four Motions Pending that will be moved at this meeting, including one from Councillor Rutherford directing Administration to provide a report outlining options and implications of not increasing the paper and reusable shopping bag fees, and one from Councillor Stevenson requesting an analysis of current spending in each of the seven community safety and wellbeing pillars. If the meeting does not conclude on Tuesday, additional time has been allotted on Wednesday, beginning at 9:30 am.

  • A Council Services Committee meeting takes place on Friday at 1:30 pm. On the agenda is a summary of the consolidated feedback regarding the Code of Conduct, and an in-camera session to review the Office of the Councillors Budget Review Task Force Final Report.

 

Last Week In Edmonton:

  • TransEd announced that the Valley Line Southeast LRT could finally be open this fall, after years of delays. The replacement of 140 kilometres of faulty cable is complete, and trains have resumed testing on the line. Construction on the line started in 2016 and was first set to open in December 2020. The most recent opening date was last summer, but the discovery of cracks in 30 of 45 piers pushed the line’s opening back indefinitely. TransEd says they’re confident in the fall timeline. We’ll see...

  • The Alberta Court of Appeal upheld an earlier decision forcing the City of Edmonton to cover the costs for red light camera and photo radar tickets received by City fleet vehicles, rather than passing those costs on to the drivers themselves. City employees haven’t had to pay their own tickets since July 2021 when the union representing transit drivers won an arbitration hearing that found making drivers pay fines on top of receiving internal discipline amounted to being punished twice. Since the July 2021 change, the City has paid $49,332 in photo radar fines. The City is now out of options for appeal.

  • An announcement was made that a new chartered surgical facility will be built just west of Edmonton on the Enoch Cree Nation. The facility will provide roughly 3,000 publicly funded orthopedic surgeries per year to Indigenous and non-Indigenous patients. Construction is due to be finished by June 2025. The Enoch Cree Nation will pay for and own the building, and operate it in partnership with Alberta Health Services. Chief Cody Thomas called the announcement “reconcili-action”.

 

-----

Donate:

Common Sense Edmonton doesn't accept any government funding and never will. We think you should be free to choose, for yourself, which organizations to support. If you're in a position to contribute financially, you can make a donation here.

-----

Share:

If you're not in a position to donate, we understand, but if you appreciate our work, you can help by spreading our message. Please email this post to your friends, share it on Facebook or Twitter, and help make sure every Edmontonian knows what's really going on at City Hall.


Be the first to comment

Please check your e-mail for a link to activate your account.
Secured Via NationBuilder