On Wednesday Jan. 4, Mayor Nolan Crouse sat down with the Gazette editorial board to discuss the year in review, the issues that arose and what the city faces both in 2012 and ahead. In the second of a two-part question-and-answer period, the mayor talks about Servus Credit Union Place, St. Albert Trail and hiring two new senior managers.
Q: What else is council contemplating besides Starbucks to tackle the operating deficit at Servus Credit Union Place?
We don't have anything right now. The key for the Servus Place deficit is memberships and continuing to market to Edmonton, northwest Edmonton is going to be the key. Every member that you get is gravy and that's the key to it. All that Starbucks is is just a name over top of a city-owned and operated facility. We have concessions at Akinsdale Arena, a concession at Fountain Park. What we've done is bought the right to have Starbucks as our concession.
Q: Do you think Servus Place could ever break even?
I always thought it would. Initially the break-even was set at 12,000 memberships and it's hardly going over 8,000. I'm starting to lose hope that it'll get to break-even but we saw the numbers come down from $2 million to $1.6 million to $1.4 million, but most of those were based on increased user rates and memberships.
Q: Is the only way it ever gets there is if a place like Sturgeon Valley Athletic Club closes?
I hate to even talk like that, or northeast Edmontonians find it convenient to come here compared to the YMCA or the (gym) on 137th Avenue.
Q: When will the city manager be hired?
We've got a subcommittee of three that is meeting with Davies Park. By Jan. 12 or 15 they will narrow the list down. The committee will narrow it down to about six and then council will be doing the interviewing. Depending on the candidates we're hoping that gets done by the first part of February. If it's somebody external and they give notice and to move them here, it's March or April before they start.
Q: Is the hiring of the general manager of economic development contingent on hiring the city manager?
They are separate. The economic development manager has not been going real well because the list of candidates is not what we had expected. We haven't done any interviews yet but round one did not bring enough candidates to the table so we're on to round two.
Q: Has the city been enforcing the portable sign bylaw?
No, we're not enforcing the signs. What happens is people put up signs and we do have bylaw people and we do have permits but the bylaw people don't go look at the permits and say, "Joe do you have a sign permit?" They don't knock on every door, do it every month or every week. They rely on people squealing on one another.
Q: When do you think the province will do something more with Ray Gibbon Drive?
I think that the trigger to go four lanes from two is about 15,000 vehicles. We're at about 11,000 or 12,000 now and we add that third phase, we'll get 15,000 and then that's exactly what's going to happen. We're going to have to deal with the pressure of commuters.
Q: Has the province finished with its work developing the future interchange with Highway 2?
No but they bought land. They bought a quarter section of land within the St. Albert city limits. So they are starting to purchase land, so it looks to me like they've got the alignment but they're just going to purchase the land as they go along.
Q: What do you see looking forward in 2012?
We've got a new Arts and Heritage Foundation (AHF) stewardship agreement that we're working on. In 2012, as we look ahead, we've got the recreation master plan, cultural master plan, policing master plan and a transit long-term plan that are going to be important. Trying to have a vision for St. Albert Trail is going to be important, as well as a long-term plan for the Hemingway Centre and the old RCMP building. We're doing a lot of work towards seniors' transportation and this is going to be something that's a 2012-13 priority.
In the area of capital, the three largest dollar items are Veness Road, Riel Park remediation and Ray Gibbon Drive. I still have concerns over ambulance response in our community. We're putting a lot of work put towards offsite levies. Public transit is a key issue with the provincial government, such as park and ride funding, etc. Funding inequities across the province continue to be an issue, whether it's policing or whether it's revenue sharing of industry, so if there's an upgrader or two in the Heartland, now we're going to be at the table pretty quickly because that generates 10s of millions of dollars in revenue, so those are things we have to keep an eye on.
Q: Why do we have the new St. Albert Trail committee?
I don't think the city, and I'll say the community, has been doing their job along the Trail. Trees are dead, shrubs are dead, the pedway has graffiti on it and I can go through a long list of 30 or 40 things. The divider where the Walmart has temporary dividers that all have to be upgraded. If you make improvements, what's the vision from one end to the other and what about portable signs and what about trees and what about medians? Then along comes St. Albert Centre and they put in artificial turf along their part. I think the community has slowly ignored it and the city has ignored it and now it's time to pull back and say what are the bylaws, what are the policies, what are the rules. What's the enforcement and what's the engineering?
Q: Are you anticipating any problems putting together the next stewardship agreement with the AHF?
I think so because I think it's difficult to know, is it 100 per cent community or 100 per cent city? It lands in the middle somewhere because it is funded predominantly by the city and is managed predominantly by the community. I think there's going to be some push back from the AHF on wanting to push it further to community, but we don't have any staff involved on either side. We've got three reps from the AHF, and three from council. We do have to have a philosophical discussion. You have such important assets that are community-owned like elevators and the school house so we're going to have some blend in there. The agreement we have is extended to expire on Dec. 31 this year so we've got 12 months to get it wrapped up.
Q: Is there anything more happening with the river?
We did include $1 million for more outfall improvement. There was also some money that was allocated towards the river study where we hire river experts and that was supposed to be done in 2011 and the report came back and I guess it was garbage. Our staff sent it back to the consultant. I don't know if they didn't know what they were talking about or they just hired a bad consultant or someone didn't know anything about rivers, I don't know. They were too embarrassed to send the draft to anyone.
