Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:
- The City will be mailing tax notices to all property owners on May 24. For a typical single-family home, taxes are going up by about 3% or $7 per month.
- In news that should surprise absolutely no one, a new City report suggests that unless annual road maintenance spending increases to $65 million, our arterial roads will crumble back to their mid-1990s condition.
- Don’t miss this interview with Mayor Mandel at The Wanderer. “Every great team has, behind it, a great captain. For the last nine years, that is what Stephen Mandel has been to the City of Edmonton: mayor and team captain.”
- Edmonton’s Homeless Commission released its Year 4 Update, and concluded the plan is on track. Thus far, 1,664 permanent homes have been secured for 2,325 people who were homeless.
- Ever wonder how your tax bill compares to people who live elsewhere in the Capital Region? Wonder no more, thanks to Elise Stolte.
- I’m sure this was not the headline Mayor Mandel wanted to read on Wednesday morning: Mandel begs province to support the downtown arena. Especially since nearly two-thirds of Edmonton and area residents don’t think the province should give money to the project.
- Sharp Magazine created a list of the 25 best coffee shops in Canada, and four locals made the cut: Credo, Transcend, Elm, and Leva. Awesome!
- It’s going to cost about $3 million to put 1,120 programmable LED lights on the High Level Bridge. It’ll cost about $17,000 per year to light the bridge for an average of seven hours per night.
- Congratulations to Corb Lund and all the other big winners at the third annual Edmonton Music Awards!
- Have you heard of “Waterpark”? It’s the directorial debut of Canadian filmmaker Evan Prosofsky, and it’s all about West Edmonton Mall.
- Are you going to take the Edmonton LRT Rapid Transit Challenge?
- Here’s the latest Council Roundup. The City will be voting on the final list of projects included in the downtown CRL on May 8.
- Some sad news for music festival-goers: the Open Sky Music Festival won’t be taking place this year. It should be back in 2014 though.
- A reminder that you can find your neighbourhood’s street cleaning schedule here.
- How much sway to real estate developers have on City Council? David Staples asks a number of Councillors. What do you think they’re going to say?
- The Oilers are frustrated about missing the playoffs again? How about the fans?! The team finished strong, but we need to see those kinds of victories all year long.
- Bad news for the new Walterdale Bridge project: it could cost $20 million more than budgeted and take a year longer to complete.
- Want to be a presenter at Pecha Kucha Night 16, taking place on June 13? The deadline to submit your idea is May 17.
Lovely shot of the EPL Parkade ramp by Ian McKenzie.
Here are some upcoming events:
- Monday night is the 26th annual Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts. Hope to see you there!
- Great food events coming up this week! The third Mosaic Minds Unconference continues tomorrow evening focused on food, TEDxEdmonton’s next salon series event is all about food on Tuesday evening, and Wednesday is the next Green Drinks, also focused on food.
- On Friday night, get ready to Trip the Light 2 at BT Edmonton!
- It’s time for the Planning Academy! There’s two events this week: Transit Oriented Development on Tuesday and Using Your Voice on Thursday.
- The Royal Bison Craft & Art Fair returns this weekend, running Friday through Sunday. Also this weekend is the Butterdome Spring Craft Sale.
- If science is your thing, don’t miss LogiCON this weekend. I’m speaking on Saturday about programming!
- The social media event of the year is happening on Saturday (May the 4th be with you) – see you at The Yeggies!
- The Callingwood Farmers’ Market reopens on Sunday at 10am!
- For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.
I love street art. This is somewhere near 124 Street, photo by Alina Strandberg.
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