Trying a different format this week!
Stanley Milner library reopens downtown
The Stanley A. Milner library downtown reopened this week after nearly four years of revitalization work. Capacity was limited for the grand opening weekend, but we booked a timeslot for Saturday and were able to visit. The inside is beautiful, and I look forward to spending a lot of time there post-pandemic. Emily had lots of fun exploring the children’s library, and I was very happy to see so much seating (all with power oulets) throughout the building. I didn’t have a chance to explore the new Makerspace, but I did write a little about that in the Tech Roundup.
While the inside of the library looks great, I still think the outside is ugly. Saying "you can’t judge a book by its cover" or "it’s what’s on the inside that counts" are just nice ways of saying what is plainly true – the outside of the library is a big disappointment. Edmonton deserves better.
I hope the gigantic air vent outside the main entrance of the library is temporary (maybe it is particularly loud right now because of LRT construction). It sounds like a jet engine. You simply cannot have a conversation with someone anywhere near the front door. The beautiful central library in Calgary literally has a train running through it and I don’t remember any uncomfortable or unpleasant noise during any of my many visits.
Other recent headlines
- City Council’s Audit Committee has directed Administration to look at reducing the number of supervisors in the City of Edmonton’s workforce. That’s the right call. The excuse that the numbers are off because the City hired more technical people in-house to help make sure projects would be delivered on-time and on-budget feels anachronistic to me. That said, tens of millions of dollars on a few too many City staff is better than hundreds of millions of dollars on far too many consultants, so I guess we’re making progress.
- I am very excited about our city’s new Indigenous ward names and I look forward to learning the correct pronunciation of each. If you’re worried about that, check out Councillor Paquette’s tweet!
- Edmonton will host the 2021 world junior hockey championship from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 without fans in attendance. I hope the bubble is smaller than it has been for the NHL playoffs. I want to be able to cross 102 Street again without needing to make a huge detour. If it must be closed for the bubble, maybe we can get a walkway installed to allow pedestrians to cross over top of the fencing? I mean, if we can spend more than $100 million to save 3 minutes for drivers on Terwillegar Drive, surely we can put up some temporary stairs for pedestrians downtown.
- The Edmonton Police Service unveiled its new $500,000 tank – I mean, armoured vehicle – this week. "Without the proper tools, things get more dangerous and we can’t respond as quickly," said Sgt. Rick Abbott. Uh huh, I’m sure that vehicle is going to help with response times. He continued: "It does look aggressive. But the reality is we can’t get involved in politics in my job. We’re too busy trying to keep Edmontonians safe." Oh FFS. Council, and Councillor Scott McKeen in particular, should be ashamed for letting this purchase go ahead, especially after making such a big deal about the e-bike rebates earlier this year.
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