I don’t often do this, but I have backdated this post (and actually posted it on Monday). Jetlag completely wiped me out Sunday when this would have normally gone up! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:
Headlines
- The City says it issued $4.625 billion worth of building permits last year, an increase of 17% over 2013. You can see monthly reports on construction permit values here.
- Congratulations to Westin chef Ryan O’Flynn on winning gold at the Gold Medal Plates competition over the weekend. He’s the first Edmonton chef to take home first place!
- A recent survey has found that 86% of callers to 311 are satisfied overall. In 2014, Edmontonians contacted the 311 Call Centre 2,192,863 times. And since the 311 app was released six months ago, it has been downloaded more than 12,000 times.
- The City filed an injunction against Uber to get them to cease operations.
- Within the next two months, a pilot project at Southgate LRT Station will make Wireless Edmonton available to Wi-Fi users! A step in the right direction.
- Could Leduc County and the City of Leduc tighten their relationship? A news release said the two will “evaluate and consider alternative governance models for the two municipalities.”
- According to Sandra Sperounes, at least six local acts have been signed to Canadian or American record labels over the last three months. Awesome!
- Five new routes have been equipped with Smart Bus technology: 12, 36, 123, 152, and 154. That brings the total number of routes with Smart Bus to 22. You can use ETS Live here.
- A new report from Alberta Environment says that air pollution at two out of ten Edmonton monitoring stations has exceeded government limits and must be reduced.
- All new schools built for Edmonton Public Schools will feature two gender-neutral washrooms. Jasper Place and Strathcona high schools already have gender-neutral washrooms.
- Do you miss Ryan Smyth? OilersNation did a pretty lengthy interview with him.
- The Local Good did a Q&A with Marissa Loewen on creating a resilient economy with pop-up stores.
- Following on from Premier Prentice’s decision to take a 5% wage cut, Alberta MLAs voted to do the same effective February 1.
- Want to file an appeal to the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board? You can now do that online.
- This spring, scientists at SNOLAB will switch on a dark-matter detector that was designed and built at the University of Alberta.
- Toronto chef Michael Stadtlander is NAIT’s new Chef-in-Residence for 2015.
- Here are the latest urbanism headlines from Spacing Edmonton.
- For more recent headlines, check out ShareEdmonton.
Caution Hazardous Girders by More Bike Lanes Please
Upcoming Events
- DemoCamp Edmonton 27 takes place on Tuesday evening at the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science at the U of A.
- Are you a student looking to procrastinate? As if you needed help! Check out Procrastinite at the Myer Horowitz on Thursday.
- The Silver Skate Festival kicks off on Friday at Hawrelak Park! This is the festival’s 25th year.
- Winefest Edmonton is back on Friday and Saturday at the Shaw Conference Centre.
- Saturday is of course Valentine’s Day. Don’t miss the Valentine’s Day Disco Skate at City Hall!
- Looking for more Valentine’s Day activities? Check out suggestions from Sharon and Linda.
- The Edmonton Rush host the Colorado Mammoth on Sunday at Rexall Place.
- For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.
Edmonton Chinese New Year 2015 by IQRemix
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