A motion to suspend portions of St. Albert's municipal naming policy failed to pass
The motion, brought forward by Coun. Shelley Biermanski, specified a suspension of parts of the city's municipal naming policy. The sections in question detail the process for removing or renaming a municipal asset. It would have seen the process suspended until it could be reviewed by city administration and a revised policy presented to the standing committee of the whole in 2026.
In the document, the process specifies that any person who resides in or has substantial connection to St. Albert and demonstrates a significant amount of community support may submit an application to remove a name or rename an existing municipal asset. During the March 18 council meeting, St. Albert Chief Administrative Officer Bill Fletcher said they determined 50 signatures to be the required threshold for community support.
The motion failed by a 4-3 vote, with councillors Biermanski, Sheena Hughes, and Ken MacKay in favour.
Biermanski said that pieces of the renaming policy divided the community.
"I had a lot of citizens come forward to me and mention that it was very difficult for them to just have a voice in the community, or to have to come to council and put their opinions or their stories, or their anxieties on display," Biermanski said, adding that the 50 signatures required on the application to rename the Grandin neighbourhood are anonymous.
"I think we need a reset time. Grandin renaming has passed, and we've learned from it," she said. She added administration was looking at doing a debrief to find improvements to the process.
Coun. Natalie Joly said she was opposed to the motion, and would like to see what specific changes to the policy Biermanski was proposing, and if there would be a required amount of money to budget toward this. She added that she'd like to have a discussion during the May 13 standing committee of the whole meeting before getting into the specifics of next steps.
Hughes spoke in support of Biermanski's motion, and said that she didn't feel like council needed to assume it would cost them more money.
"I think that the policy itself there's probably just a few items that perhaps we want council to have more control over," Hughes said, giving the example of the number of names required before the Naming Committee may make the decision to take the application to council.
She added that if the suspension is in place, then any potential issues with the process would be ironed out before city administration might have to deal with any future renaming applications.
She said that the City of Edmonton has a different renaming process than St. Albert. For example, Edmonton's policy states that 75 per cent of property and business owners directly affected by the renaming of the road to be in support of the renaming.
St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron agreed with Joly that a further conversation should be held on May 13 to collect any recommendations from city administration.
"Name changing is never going to be easy, it's always going to be messy," Heron said. "Sometimes council has to make decisions not just for the majority but for others that are hurting, or feeling unsupported. And that's what we did."
