Mayor sticks with 'no boom, no bust' message for annual address

St. Albert's mayor predicted a steady year for St. Albert despite the economic turmoil swirling around the province.

“St. Albert is in a good spot,” said Mayor Nolan Crouse. He delivered the annual state of the city address at a St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday.

Crouse repeated a line used during his 2015 address, telling the crowd that there would once again be “no boom, no bust” this year in St. Albert.

His speech covered a wide range of topics, from crime rates to trees to housing starts in 2015.

“I hope I've left you with a picture of comfort and optimism for 2016,” Crouse said, though he assured the crowd he wasn't just trying to spread “political sunshine.”

“I always believe people need to have a sense if the ground is stable or not. What I have shared is that the ground continues to be very stable in St. Albert, at least for 2016. That is not intended to simply be political sunshine, it is the truth,” the mayor said.

He even pitched a name for the city's so-called employment lands, an area in west St. Albert that's hoped to one day be some kind of business park.

“I call it Venture Park,” he said, noting that in the city's alphabetical naming scheme, the letter V is still needed.

When it came time for questions, the crowd only posed three – two of which were from chamber president and CEO Lynda Moffat.

Moffat wanted to know about plans for refugees – which are being handled by the churches – and a timeline for movement on Project 9, a sewer line that is needed to help spark development in western parts of St. Albert.

Crouse said he expected council would be into decision-making mode in May or June for the sewer line project. Detailed engineering plans are underway.

Council's still waiting on more information before making decisions, including how or if the city will finance the $40-million project.

There could be a chance of a borrowing bylaw being proposed, and Crouse pointed out those have been controversial in the past. While he can't imagine a St. Albert without Ray Gibbon Drive or Servus Place today, he said, borrowing to pay for those projects caused an uproar at the time.

“Borrowing has the potential of raising your taxes,” Crouse said.

Another question was about the clogged parking of the downtown area, questioning the decision to move back to parallel parking on Perron Street.

“It was a split community when it came down to the data,” Crouse said. He thinks a small parkade is needed, but noted such a structure isn't even on the capital project radar for at least a few years.

Watch the full video of his State of the City address here.