St. Albert city council has a jam-packed agenda for this week's standing committee of the whole meeting, including a clarified and corrected draft of the new municipal naming policy, the draft 2024 repair, maintain, and replace (RMR) budget, and some recommendations from administration on waste minimization.
On Monday, the city released two 'What We Heard' reports stemming from the multitude of public engagement sessions that administration and project consultants conducted leading up to the first policy presentation to council in February.
While one report contains overall engagement findings, the second report is limited to feedback and correspondence submitted by residents that predominantly features racist and discriminatory comments.
In a May 8 news release, Mayor Cathy Heron said the city originally wasn't planning to release the second report, however after a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) request was received, the city determined “there was no valid legal reason not to disclose the report to the applicant, so we decided to release the report publicly.”
“When I learned of the hurtful comments we received from some members of the community, I was sad, appalled and extremely disappointed,” Heron said. “This is not the St. Albert I know.”
“These comments reflect the ignorant, bigoted and ill-informed views of a minority of survey respondents but reveal the uncomfortable truth that racism and intolerance exist in our community.”
The report includes verbatim comments made during in-person engagement sessions as well as emails sent to the city about the municipal naming project.
Many of the comments include slurs, residential school denialism, misinformation, transphobia, as well as a multitude of responses that denigrate city staff, including a respondent who said city council and administration “smacks of crybaby weakness.”
The names of residents whose comments were included were withheld from the report.
The last time the draft municipal naming policy was in front of council was the Feb. 14 committee of the whole meeting, which resulted in the committee deciding to have the draft policy have clarified definitions and more concise language.
As well, in February the committee learned that Coun. Shelley Biermanski intends to put forward 22 separate changes to the policy for debate. When asked in February, Biermanski told the Gazette she preferred to wait until the policy was debated again to disclose what changes she was seeking.
The Gazette submitted a FOIP request in February to try and obtain the drafted motions Biermanski had shared with her council colleagues prior to the first committee debate, however the city denied the request.
The Gazette will have an article dedicated to the committee's debate on the municipal naming policy in the Thursday, May 11 edition of the newspaper.
Draft 2024 RMR budget
Despite the 2023 year being less than halfway complete, city council will take the first step of preparing the 2024 budget on May 9.
Administration is scheduled to present a draft of the 2024 RMR budget, which is finalized ahead of the city's total budget in order to better assess and determine which capital and growth projects can be funded the following year.
The RMR budget is limited specifically to projects that maintain city service levels, as such, each year administration assumes a 1.5 per cent property tax increase when preparing the annual budget for council's consideration as costs continue to increase year-over-year as the city grows and infrastructure and equipment gets older.
According to a report to council prepared by city financial controller Deborah Johnson, administration is presenting a 2024 RMR budget of $53.26 million which will cover 38 individual projects. The total RMR budget is divided on paper between municipal RMR projects (25) and utility RMR projects (13).
On the capital side, approximately $14 million is being designated to RMR work for city facilities such as St. Albert Place; $11 million is being set aside for road and infrastructure RMR work; nearly $6 million is budgeted for equipment; and about $400,000 is budgeted for parks, trails, and master plans.
For utility projects, approximately $9.85 million is needed for stormwater projects; nearly $4.1 million is needed for wastewater projects; and about $8.05 million is needed for drinking water infrastructure.
Johnson's backgrounder explains that changes or un-funding of any projects would have no effect on property tax rates as all project funding is obtained through reserves, grants, and are covered through administration's capital funding formula.
The Gazette will have an article dedicated to the committee's discussion of the draft RMR budget in the Thursday, May 11 edition of the newspaper.
New waste minimization recommendations
On May 9, administration will also be presenting the committee of the whole with recommendations to improve waste minimization in St. Albert moving forward.
One of the major recommendations included in the strategy is to have council not move forward with a municipal single use item reduction strategy, specifically because a federal strategy is already in place and is being implemented in phases over the next three years.
“As businesses in the city exhaust their existing stock, they may choose to find alternative items to provide to consumers, such as compostable or recyclable items, reusable items, or eliminating single use items from their businesses all together,” administration's report states.
Council initially directed administration to study what a local single use item reduction strategy would entail back in 2019, with $96,000 in funding, however the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the study until the summer of 2022.
Administration's recommendation not to move forward with a single use item reduction strategy in St. Albert also stems from the recent garbage audit a consultant completed for the city last June.
According to the audit, completed over 10 days with waste collected from 100 random homes, just 0.67 per cent (or 2,673) of all garbage, recyclable, and compostable items collected were single use items.
“It is expected that the federal regulations will address approximately 31 per cent of the items counted during the (garbage audit, such as) grocery bags, cutlery, straws, and Styrofoam,” administration's report says.
Another recommendation coming from administration is that council should, through a bylaw update, mandate three stream waste diversion throughout St. Albert's multi-residential complexes.
As the Gazette reported last month, Coun. Mike Killick says he intends to put forward a motion accomplishing this recommendation from administration.
Currently just 13 of the 139 multi-residential buildings in the city provide three stream (garbage, recycling, and compost) waste disposal.
Killick said he believes implementing three stream collection at the remaining buildings will improve the city's waste diversion rate, which has remained steady at 46 per cent over the past two years.
The Gazette will have an article dedicated to administration's waste minimization recommendations in the Thursday, May 11 edition of the newspaper.
