A new online petition is seeking to force city council to resign over its decision to put a city-owned Starbucks location at Servus Credit Union Place.
The petition at www.petitiononlinecanada.com states a belief that the average city taxpayer has lost trust in St. Albert’s city council and administration.
“This petition is to force council to resign over the Starbuck’s business decision,” it states. “The goal is to get enough signatures to force council to resign rather [than] forcing us to force their hand through the local government act.”
City governance is bound by the Municipal Government Act, which contains no mechanisms to force out councillors, except if members are convicted of a criminal code offence, said city manager Bill Holtby.
Resident Mark Fraser said he signed the petition because of his displeasure with the spending record of this and previous councils, plus the coffee shop decision itself.
“I don’t agree with the decision at all as far as Starbucks goes. They don’t have any business doing that as a government entity,” Fraser said.
He doesn’t hold out hope that residents can actually force out the council.
“I signed it to try and make them know, ‘Listen, you can’t be doing this crap,’” Fraser said. “Next time something like this comes up, do it in public.”
Council decided to put $280,000 of city money into a Starbucks that the city will operate under license. The decision came after two private discussions and one debate in a public meeting on July 4.
Mayor Nolan Crouse predicted the petition would attract a small group of residents.
“It’s a peaceful way of establishing an opinion. It’s not something that council’s going to take that serious,” Crouse said. “I mean, we’re not going to get council resigning over a decision like that.”
The website states that its goal is to attract 1,000 names. As of Friday afternoon, there were 13. Some of the names were familiar to Crouse.
“The names [on the list] are against anything that council does, so that’s just the nature of some people,” he said.
The full web address for the petition is http://www.petitiononlinecanada.com/petition/new-st-albert-city-council-2011/218.
