Edmonton Notes for July 10, 2016

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

• David Staples questions whether Edmonton is really a city of risk takers in light of the wall of encouragement on Melcor’s 100th Street Place building. Todd Babiak wrote a letter in response. Here’s even more on the debate from Robin Mazumder. And here’s a look at “why and how the new mural came together” from Make Something Edmonton.
• Councillor Michael Oshry is considering a bid for the Alberta PC leadership. “What Alberta needs is a party that’s down the middle,” he told the Journal.
• Sanjay Shahani is the new Executive Director of the Edmonton Arts Council. Here’s a feature on Sanjay, who started in the role this week.
• Thorsten Goldberg has been selected to create a new piece of public art called 53°30’N for the new North East Transit Garage.
• Construction begins tomorrow on portions of the storm and sanitary service connections at Blatchford. The underground utility work is expected to take about 5 months.
• Emil covers a wide range of new projects taking place around the city in The Evolution of Edmonton. “From theatres to skyscrapers, Edmonton is evolving into a world class metro right before our eyes!”
• The City has introduced new landscaping requirements to ensure new homes have a minimum number of trees and shrubs and also to provide “an incentive to encourage Edmontonians to keep mature trees.”
• Downtown residents received notice of two proposed mega-bars this week. One in the Fox Tower 2 would be nearly 600 seats while the other, in the former Mother’s Music building, could hold 1,400 people.
• Alberta Venture has released its list of Alberta’s 50 Most Influential People of 2016. Nineteen Edmontonians made the list, including Daryl Katz, Connor McDavid, Rachel Notley, and Amarjeet Sohi.
• The City’s free summer drop-in programs are now underway and run weekdays until August 25, 2016. Last year, all drop-in programs received 565,000 visits.
• The Edmonton Public Library’s Jasper Place branch has won a 2016 Green Building Award. The LEED-certified building, designed by Hughes Condon Marler Architects, opened in 2013.
• From Dustin Bajer: “After two years of planting, the Edmonton food forest contains thousands of edible, native trees and shrubs that saskatoons, highbush cranberries, currants, elderberries, pin-cherries, chokecherries, beaked hazelnuts, and raspberries.” Now you can help plan for the third year on August 13!
• Disclosure statements from the 2016 Ward 12 By-Election were made available recently. Troy Pavlek put together a spreadsheet which shows that Moe Banga raised the most money at $78,890.
• The City’s Eco Stations program has received the Gold Excellence Award in the Special Waste category from the Solid Waste Association of North America.
• Dozens of people protested the pending demolition of the Cloverdale Footbridge today. More than 2,000 people use the bridge every day but they’ll have to find another route starting Monday when it closes to the public.
• For more recent headlines, check out ShareEdmonton.

Upcoming Events

• The Edmonton International Street Performers Festival kicked off on Friday and continues all week at Churchill Square.
• Also continuing this week is the Freewill Shakespeare Festival at Hawrelak Park.
• The Edmonton Prospects have four home games this week – Tuesday and Friday they host the Yorkton Cardinals and Saturday & Sunday they host the Fort McMurray Giants.
• The City and the Oilers are hosting an Information Session for Residents and Businesses regarding Rogers Place on Wednesday.
• Families are encouraged to head out to Gold Bar Park on Wednesday evening for Family Nature Nights: Forest Fables.
• On Wednesday evening the next #YEGparity Speaker Series event takes place at ATB Place.
• Thursday evening is the opening ceremony for the Alberta Summer Games, taking place at the Leduc Recreation Centre.
• The 2016 TrackTown Classic takes place on Friday at Foote Field.
• Check out Centennial Plaza behind the Stanley Milner Library downtown on Saturday afternoon for some basketball with Full Court 21 Canada.
• Then head over to 104 Street in the evening for the 104th Street Auto Show.
• Don’t miss my roundup of summer festivals & events for 2016.
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

Edmonton International Street Performers Festival 2016, photo by IQRemix