Speaking Municipally is back after a short summer break with a deep dive on the City Plan. Thanks to Kalen Anderson for joining us to chat all about the plan and what we can expect this fall!
Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:
Headlines
- After the long weekend, the City said it was seeing about 80% compliance with the temporary mandatory face coverings bylaw. The next update will likely come Thursday at the Emergency Advisory Committee meeting, and I expect these exemption cards will be a hot topic of discussion.
- The provincial government has contracted Old Navy and Alberta-based IFR to produce 1.7 million reusable masks at a total cost of $4.2 million in time for back-to-school. Here are some of the highlights from EPSB and ECSD’s back-to-school guidelines.
- Aside from masks, the only other thing people seemed to be talking about this week was the Edmonton Oilers 50/50. No, no the fact that the team lost to Chicago and is out of the playoffs (see also: Connor McDavid Deserves Better Than This Garbage). The latest raffle on Friday saw demand for tickets exceed $100,000 per minute. The tech failed and lots of people were charged multiple times. The winner still hasn’t been announced.
- We do have a championship team here in Edmonton though! Congratulations to the Edmonton Stingers, winners of the Canadian Elite Basketball League Summer Series title.
- Looks like it is business-as-usual for the Edmonton Police. “We’ve pulled in virtually every warm body that we can to give us a hand on these because with this influx and the amount of work that’s involved in each one, were tasked to the max right now,” said Supt. Brad Doucette about an increase in violent crime last month.
- Most branches of the Edmonton Public Library reopened this week. The library has also launched EPL on the Square in Churchill Square downtown to "give the city’s homeless a place to read books and magazines, use a laptop computer or participate in adult classes." Or they could, I don’t know, open the Stanley Milner branch that was supposed to open on Feb. 14.
- The City of Edmonton has maintained its AA credit rating for 2020, the same level as last year, according to Standard & Poor’s (S&P).
- Edmonton Transit has introduced its first battery-electric buses into service. Electric buses will be able to operate on almost every ETS route and are "roughly 30% less expensive to service and maintain than current diesel buses."
- It was good to see the the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) will receive $5 million as part of a new Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) funding announcement.
- Edmonton’s unemployment rate dropped from 15.7% to 15% in July, still one of the highest levels among major Canadian cities, but a little better than Calgary’s at 15.5%.
- The provincial government has decided to switch over to the national COVID-19 notification app after all. Details are "yet to be confirmed as to how the app will be adopted in the province" or what it means for the existing ABTraceTogether app and data.
- Can’t wait to talk about this with Troy on Speaking Municipally this week: Councillors Nickel and Dziadyk want to ban photo radar.
- Get the latest on Media, Tech, Food, Health Innovation, the Region, Music, Arts, Business, and Council with Taproot Edmonton’s latest roundups.
Photo by Jan Mosimann
Upcoming Events (August 10-16)
The vast majority of upcoming events have been cancelled or postponed. If you’re unsure, just stay home – especially if you’re feeling sick.
Most of Taproot’s weekly roundups have a curated selection of virtual events.
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