The city hall desk, which was built in the '80s and has electrical issues, may get a face lift in the near future.
Following a successful motion on Jan. 10, city administration has been directed to develop a project charter and cost estimate to replace council's desk in city hall for consideration in the 2024 budget process.
Councillors say the desk, which has remained nearly unchanged since it was built in 1983, is rife with electrical issues, creates visibility problems for councillors, and does not meet provincial accessibility requirements.
"One thing is there isn't enough plug-ins, some of the plugins don't work," Coun. Sheena Hughes told The Gazette, adding that some outlets are also loose.
"In 1980 there wasn't the need to have all of the electronic voting, plus your tablet, plus your computer, and now we're just make-shifting how to make this handle it," said Hughes, who put the motion forward.
"Upgrading it to [work] in today's society would be really helpful."
Coun. Mike Killick, who sits on the far right-hand side of the bench from the viewpoint of the public, says the desk obstructs his view of city administration during council meetings.
"They're totally blocked from my view, which makes it a bit hard to read body language back and forth during question and answer period and during debate, so I think that anything that could be done to just remove that physical barrier would be really good," Killick said.
"It's not only reading body language, but it's just being professional and polite," he said.
"You want to make eye contact with people when they're responding to questions and vice versa, and I think it makes it tough to do that."
Coun. Shelley Biermanski says she hasn't experienced the same issues as some of her fellow councillors, but she understands their concerns about the desk's functionality.
"I don't really have any issues with it but a lot of the councillors' things like electronics don't work and are outdated, so I'm not sure if it needs a full replacement or just repairs," Biermanski said.
"You have to have a working, functioning, workspace as far as being able to plug in your computers."
Previous estimates
In a backgrounder prepared in advance of the Jan. 10 council meeting, the city's director of public operations, Jay Mason, wrote that in 2017 administration estimated the cost to replace the desk would be around $200,000.
"This cost was dependent on whether or not adjustments or removal of the concrete structure supporting the bench needed to be completed," Mason wrote. "If the structure was to be completely demolished, costs were expected to increase."
"With changes to the Alberta Building Code since the construction of St. Albert Place, the structure would most likely need to be amended to reduce the degree of slope as it does not meet current wheelchair accessibility standards."
This previous estimate was completed as part of a $374,000 council chambers upgrade project in 2018 to make various upgrades to council chambers, such as improving the audio-visual system, installing safety railings in the public gallery and also making it wheelchair accessible, and to replace council's desk.
City spokesperson Nicole Lynch said in an email that although funding was approved in 2018, the desk wasn't replaced after administration consultated the Arts and Heritage Committee during the design process.
"The final scope of work was further defined through its conceptual design process after consultation with the Heritage Advisory Committee ... which resulted in not all upgrades being completed as part of the Council Chambers Upgrade Project," Lynch said, further explaining that the St. Albert Place bylaw requires the city to consult the Arts and Heritage Committee on any changes to the building, as it is considered a municipal historic building.
"The work focused on furniture (new administration desks), minor revisions to public gallery (adding two dedicated wheelchair seats), new flooring, I.T. upgrades and a new 12-millimetre glass door at the bottom of the stairs, separating Administration from the public gallery area."
Council will debate replacing the desk in May as part of the 2024 repairing, maintaining, and replacing (RMR) budget process.
