Record snowfall on Saturday wasn’t enough to keep some St. Albert residents from city council’s first town hall meeting.
Approximately 20 people, along with five councillors, Mayor Nolan Crouse and a half-dozen city staff members braved blizzard-like conditions for the get together at the Lacombe Park clubhouse. While a tentative agenda had been approved by council two weeks prior, those in attendance grabbed hold of the open mike session scheduled for the beginning and didn’t give it up, with questions and grievances ranging from economic development and the Sturgeon River to offsite levies, the city’s LRT desires and even train whistle cessation.
“Thank you for coming out on this invigorating morning,” deputy mayor and meeting chair Len Bracko said to laughter from those assembled. “Council’s priority is to communicate with residents through various means.”
Those in attendance were permitted to speak on whatever issues they so chose. Lisa Delage, a Mission resident, was particularly irate about the train whistles in the area along Meadowview Drive, stating she was hoping to open a bed and breakfast in the area.
“There’s no way I’m going to start a bed and breakfast if my guests have to listen to train whistles,” Delage said, asking about the status of the city’s whistle cessation program. “I think my hearing problems are totally attributed to this train whistle.
“We can have statues and Starbucks, but this is health and safety. This is the ongoing health of people on a day and night basis.”
General manager of planning and engineering Guy Boston replied that the city is doing its share of the work to stop trains from sounding whistles inside city limits at two locations — Riel and Meadowview — but the city still has to apply to CN.
“Don’t think the whistles will stop just because this one project will be done,” Boston warned, saying total whistle cessation was still a couple of years away.
After former council candidate Norm Harley delivered a prepared, five-minute speech blasting council for expensive master plans, LRT and high taxes, former mayor Richard Plain came to the city’s defence, saying it needed to do a better job of communicating the total cost of home ownership in St. Albert compared to Edmonton. Plain asserted lower housing costs in St. Albert make up for the higher residential property tax.
“So I urge council, please communicate a proper breakdown of what it does cost individuals to live in our city,” Plain said. “
The topic of growth was also popular with those in attendance. While some advocated for increased non-residential expansion, others were concerned about why the city needed to grow at all, especially residentially.
“Why do we want to grow residential and give developers the advantage with offsite levies? Travel through St. Albert just gets more complicated,” said resident Reta Thompson.
Boston responded that the number of “rooftops” often dictate when a non-residential business will come to town, citing Earls as an example. Until the city had a population of 60,000 people, Earls wasn’t going to open a restaurant in St. Albert.
“As soon as we had 60,000 — boom — Earls came,” Boston said. “The residential component supports the non-residential.”
The remaining meetings are scheduled for Wednesday May 30 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and Thursday Oct. 4 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.
