If I understand it correctly, councillors’ manners are just the superficial symptoms of more serious underlying problems. And these seem to involve either vested interests or basic misunderstanding of the issues.
It appears that some council members, contrary to usual procedure, are behind front-ending infrastructure for development that may be a lot slower to evolve than predicted, or might not happen at all.
These are not the best of times, although, to be sure, they are not the worst, but perhaps a little caution is appropriate. There seems already to be a super-abundance of light industrial and warehouse capacity in the part of Edmonton that abuts St. Albert, south/west, and many predict a slow-down in the housing market. Normally, the developer provides the infrastructure as they develop and are compensated for extensions by later developers. By pre-developing infrastructure the very small city of St. Albert could be saddled with servicing a very large debt, for a very long time.
I support St. Albert business before resorting to others: it saves time and travel nuisance and expense, and just seems the right thing to do. I also spend what would otherwise be used for two-week holidays on year-long coffee-shop and restaurant patronage.
But if taxes keep going up sharply (and for some questionable projects) I and many others will have less disposable income to spend on city businesses. So maybe all councillors might consider what is really in the best interests of the city, as well as their own, and the two are not unconnected.
Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert
