Red Deer Minute: Provincial Budget, Airport Funding, and an Emergency Management Partnership

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

This Week In Red Deer:

• Today, at 9:00 am, there will be a City Council meeting. The meeting will begin with a closed (secret) portion where Council will discuss utility governance and the City’s relationship with Westerner Park. Once the meeting opens back up to the public, there will be a discussion around the creation of an emergency management partnership with Red Deer County, Sylvan Lake, Penhold, and other smaller communities nearby. Council will also consider passing bylaws that increase service fees as previously decided upon during budget deliberations.
  
  
• On Tuesday, the Red Deer & District Family and Community Support Services Board will meet at 5:00 pm. On the agenda is a proposed Indigenous Advisory Committee as a way of adjudicating applications for the Indigenous Funding Stream.
  
  
• On Wednesday, at 5:00 pm, the Public Art Commission will meet. There will be a Public Art Projects Update before the Committee heads into a closed meeting to discuss public art at City Hall.

Last Week In Red Deer:

• ​The provincial budget was tabled last week and locally, the big winner was the Red Deer Regional Airport with a $30 million investment. Last year, there was a $15 million investment to widen the runway to allow for 737 aircraft to land. This new investment will see significant upgrades to the terminal and a new connector road north of the airport. The budget also allocated $3 million for the completion of the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Center. One local project left out of the budget was Red Deer Polytechnic’s ask for funding to increase the capacity at their Center for Innovation and Manufacturing.
  
  
• Ongoing major projects also made it into the Province’s new budget. The Justice Center had $87 million earmarked for its completion and the Red Deer Hospital is slated to receive $320 million over the next three years, primarily for planning and design of the hospital expansion. The government also made sure to add that the Red Deer Hospital is on schedule!
  
  
• It was announced that the Municipal Sustainability Initiative grant will double next year, providing municipal governments with a significant increase in provincial money. If all goes according to plan, the City of Red Deer will receive $700,000 more revenue. The education requisition for municipal tax payers will also decrease by 2.63%.

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