I wonder if council understands their purpose and mandate when I see them effectively doubling the size of council by arbitrarily making themselves full time staff. The decision to move to full time status should have come with a needs assessment and, likely, a reduction in the number of required council members.
The unnecessary and wasteful attempt at becoming a taxpayer-subsidized utility trying to build a solar farm where no private company has shown an interest in investing, and now taxpayer-subsidized charging stations despite the majority of taxpayer-owned vehicles being ICE vehicles is wasteful.
Electric vehicles are not sustainable, require mining operations many times larger than currently done globally and have significant recycling gaps. At best, electric vehicles are a temporary measure until newer, better technologies are adopted. Governments are the least effective at selecting commercially viable technologies and even worse when making economic decisions related to implementation.
Will the city be including a fee to cover the higher costs of road maintenance due to the 30 per cent to 250 per cent higher vehicle weights of electric vehicles? Will the power price at these stations include the additional costs for electrical infrastructure throughout our expanding city? I suspect neither these nor the many other cost considerations related to these expensive and inefficient vehicles have been taken into account and will only serve to further increase the tax burden on residents without any real lasting benefit.
Kevin Drinkwater, St. Albert
