Red Deer Minute: Mayoral Address, County Comparison, and a Parking Lot Dispute

Red Deer Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Red Deer politics

This Week In Red Deer:

• On Wednesday, Mayor Ken Johnston will be delivering his State of the City address at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon. The event will take place at the new Red Deer Resort and Casino (formerly the Cambridge Hotel) at 11:45 am.
  
  
• Also on Wednesday, the Municipal Planning Commission will meet at 9:00 am. The one item up for discussion is a request for the new Central Alberta Women’s Emergency Shelter (CAWES) to be built with 29 parking spots instead of the bylaw-required 62 parking spots. The building will feature 75 single shelter beds, 15 two-bedroom transitional housing units, a kitchen, and offices for CAWES. On Thursday, there will be a Special Meeting of Council, but no agenda or time for this meeting is available yet.
  
  
• On Friday, Finance Minister Travis Toews will be in Red Deer to deliver a post-budget presentation at another Chamber of Commerce luncheon. The provincial budget will be released on Tuesday. Be sure to follow Common Sense Red Deer on Facebook and Twitter as we recap all of the parts of the budget that impact Red Deer.

Last Week In Red Deer:

• ​In a surprising move, Council voted 5-4 to not renew the lease for the Red Deer Farmers’ Market at Servus Arena parking lot, the same lot used by the Red Deer Curling Club. The curling club claimed that having the Market take up their parking lot limited their ability to host weekend events in the summer and that it is no longer financially feasible to only operate as a winter facility. Council’s decision gives the Market just 87 days to find a new location before the start of their season.
  
  
• The Province announced $10 million in funding to help Grande Prairie cover the cost of transitioning to a municipal police force if their Council decides to go that direction - a route Red Deer City Council rejected three years ago. After spending $200,000 on a review, it was determined that annual policing costs would be higher with a city police force. Red Deer is currently the largest municipality still using the RCMP for local policing. What do you think? Should we revisit the issue if provincial funding is on the table?
  
  
• Red Deer County received the Canadian Award for Financial Reporting last week. Normally, these sort of accounting awards are a bit of a snooze-fest but, in this case, the contrast between the City and the County couldn’t be starker. During the most recent budget deliberations, Red Deer City Councillors complained that they could not understand the documents presented to them, while the County took home an award for “an easily readable and efficiently organized annual financial report”.

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