Category: Edmonton Etcetera

TransEd selected for the Valley Line LRT, interVivos turns 9, changes at Startup Edmonton

I’m trying something new, where I share some thoughts on a few topical items in one post. Less than I’d write in a full post on each, but more than I’d include in Edmonton Notes. I’ll organize them here. Have feedback? Let me know!

TransEd Partners selected as Valley Line LRT partner

Today the City of Edmonton announced that TransEd Partners has been selected “to design, build, operate, maintain and finance stage one of the Valley Line LRT.” TransEd is a consortium comprised of: Fengate Capital Management, Bechtel, Ellis-Don, and Bombardier. Additionally, TransDev, ARUP, and IBI Group are described as “other key team members.” TransEd was selected after an 18 month procurement process “that saw comprehensive proposals from three international teams.”

Acting City Manager Linda Cochrane said the City, the LRT Governance Board, and the fairness monitor were all “quite comfortable” with the bids that were received, but felt the TransEd bid offered the best value for taxpayers. She repeated what Mayor Iveson and other City officials have highlighted in recent months, which is that the P3 model “by its nature transfers risk” to the partner. It’s pretty clear everyone is nervous because of what happened with the Metro Line and Thales. I have no doubt the issues that were encountered with the Metro Line will not be repeated with the Valley Line. But the reality of a $1.8 billion project, the single largest infrastructure project in Edmonton, is that something else will go wrong. What’s important is how the City will handle it.

And that’s the other key thing that Linda talked about today – communication. She noted that the City is still responsible for the project and is the entity to complain to if and when things go wrong. And she acknowledged that the City has room to improve when it comes to communication. But they are committed to being “as transparent as possible” throughout the entire project.

The next step is to finalize the contract with TransEd, which will involve a deeper dive into all of the financials. That is slated to be complete by February 2016 and if all goes well, construction will begin in the spring. The new 13-km line from Mill Woods to Downtown would be complete in 2020, with service starting by the end of that year.

interVivos turns 9

Last night I had the pleasure of serving as emcee for interVivos’ latest mentorship networking event. It’s the second time I have hosted the event, so I was thrilled to be asked back!

“The mentorship program helps achieve the mandate of interVivos by “bringing together young professionals and students with Edmonton’s business, political and community leaders to develop the relationships and the skills required by young people to assume positions of positive leadership within our community”.”

The mentorship program began in 2012 and has been running twice a year ever since. I’ve had the opportunity to be a mentor in the past as well, and I had a very positive experience. The way it works is interVivos brings together sixteen proteges and sixteen mentors, and they meet in a speed networking format. Proteges get four minutes to meet each mentor, and then at the end of the evening they all rank their top five preferred matches. interVivos makes the matches within a few weeks, and then each protege and mentor pairing is responsible for communicating at least three times over six months. You get out of it what you put into it, but the relationships that are formed can be quite meaningful.

interVivos Fall Mentorship Networking
Rene Ziorio & Zohreh Saher

interVivos launched back in November 2006 making it nine years old this month, which is quite an achievement! Zohreh and the team should be very proud of what they’ve built. In case you were wondering, interVivos is a Latin word that means “from one person to another”. You can follow interVivos on Facebook and on Twitter.

Changes at Startup Edmonton

The secret is out now: Ken Bautista resigned last month from Startup Edmonton and EEDC. He wrote:

“After eighteen months since our acquisition, I came to realize that it was the right time to leave Startup Edmonton in a place where it could continue to be a platform to grow our community beyond my leadership.”

There’s still a great team at Startup Edmonton, including co-founder Cam Linke and COO Tiffany Linke-Boyko, but Ken’s resignation is a big loss for EEDC. The energy, creativity, and vision he brought to the organization will surely be missed.

Frankly this news leaves me wondering about EEDC’s ongoing culture change. Ken is not the kind of person you want to lose, and if he was frustrated by bureaucracy or other internal impediments then that’s concerning. I’m sure we’ll learn more about how things are going at EEDC during the budget process over the next couple weeks (and potentially at the IMPACT Luncheon in January).

As for Ken, I have no doubt he’ll be positively impacting Edmonton with his next project (whatever that might be) in no time.

Downtown’s missing E, Welcoming Syrian refugees, Progressing big city issues

I’m trying something new, where I share some thoughts on a few topical items in one post. Less than I’d write in a full post on each, but more than I’d include in Edmonton Notes. I’ll organize them here. Have feedback? Let me know!

What happened to the colorful downtown E?

Back in May I wrote about the new “downtown for everyone” visual identity which features the E-shaped window. I didn’t really like the “E” itself, because “it doesn’t say anything about downtown nor does it say anything about construction.” I liked the color and the idea of tying the various downtown construction projects together. But as I noted at the time, “that only works if it is widely adopted.”

Now more than six months later, I think it’s pretty clear that adoption is not happening. Despite planning to incorporate the “E” window, the Oilers have not installed it or any of the design elements around Rogers Place. The Royal Alberta Museum used to have great construction hoarding of its own, but it never adopted the window and now the chainlink fence lacks the “E”‘s visual cues. Even the City’s own office tower lacks the “E” window and colors. If they aren’t even going to use it, why would anyone else? Yes there was the big metallic E around town this summer, but the only other place it has shown up is on the website.

New Civic Tower
New civic tower construction

The only construction site that has really adoped the “E” is NorQuest’s new expansion. If there were awards for construction hoarding, I think NorQuest would win hands down. It’s bright, colorful, informative, and safe.

Welcoming Syrian refugees to Edmonton

Estimates suggest that roughly 2,500 to 3,000 Syrian refugees will be coming to Alberta, part of the federal government’s pledge to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year. Most of the refugees that come to Alberta will settle in Calgary and Edmonton, of course. According to Stephen Carattini, CEO of Catholic Social Services (the agency with the federal contract to settle refugees here in Edmonton), roughly 400-500 refugees would normally be settled in a year. Settling three times that many in just over a month and a half will not be easy.

There have been some horrible things written and said about refugees since the deadly attacks in Paris, but Premier Notley said we must stick to the plan to welcome Syrian refugees into Canada.

“We need to do that carefully and cautiously but we need to definitely move forward. We cannot have our decisions being driven by fear.”

The Canadian Council for Refugees issued an excellent statement in response to the attacks in Paris and Beirut. Here’s an excerpt:

“The CCR joins in the global outrage at the recent mass murders in Paris and Beirut. The loss of life and shattering of our sense of security connects us to the daily death and destruction in Syria and in other countries at war. We hope that Canadians will remember that Syrian refugees are victims of this violence and will redouble their commitment to welcome them in Canada.”

It’s too bad this unnecessary fear has impacted the United States, where the House today voted to tighten screen procedures on refugees from Syria.

Progressing big city issues

Yesterday afternoon Mayors Iveson & Nenshi met with Premier Notley at the Legislature to discuss the big city charter, policing costs, poverty reduction, and more.

“We want to have an increasingly collaborative relationship and we know that the cities do incredibly important work for the citizens of their cities and, frankly, the province in many ways,” Notley said.

Who knows how productive their meeting really was, but Premier Notley invited both mayors to present their wishlists to the Alberta NDP cabinet in January, so that’s interesting. Mayor Iveson sounded upbeat about the meeting, tweeting “appreciated the chance to explore value-enhancing partnerships around transit, housing, policing & poverty.” Mayor Nenshi tweeted simply, “thanks for the time and continuing our partnership.” For her part, Premier Notley tweeted “a very productive meeting with @DanielleLarivee, @doniveson & @nenshi as we strengthen our partnerships.”

Premier Rachel Notley meets with Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi
Photo by Premier of Alberta

Iveson and Nenshi spent the lunch hour yesterday on Alberta at Noon, taking calls from listeners. Best thing to come out of that? Probably this GIF. At least we know Nenshi liked it!

They both spoke about refugees, of course. Mayor Nenshi said:

“We have a moment now…a moment to define ourselves as a people, as who we are, and what we do, and to show the world what we are capable of. And I know that we’re going to do a great job.”

Mayor Iveson said:

“This can be another example that we look back on as Canada doing what it does best, which is being a light to the world in terms of multiculturalism, in terms of inclusion, and in terms of humanitarianism.”

Isn’t it great to have our province’s big city mayors displaying such leadership?

Ward 12 by-election confirmed, Jobber secures $8 million, EndPoverty Edmonton extended

I’m trying something new, where I share some thoughts on a few topical items in one post. Less than I’d write in a full post on each, but more than I’d include in Edmonton Notes. I’ll organize them here. Have feedback? Let me know!

Ward 12 by-election confirmed

We now have a date for the Ward 12 by-election to replace Amarjeet Sohi! Thanks to a 30 day extension from the Province, the by-election will take place on Monday, February 22, 2016. That means Nomination Day will take place on January 25. The results of the election will be made official on February 26 by noon.

As Dave noted earlier today, there are seven candidates who have announced they’ll run in the by-election so far. The successful candidate will be sworn in at a special City Council meeting on February 26 from 1-2pm. Then they’ll face an aggressive orientation and training period from February 29 to March 4.

Amarjeet Sohi - Ward 12
Amarjeet Sohi on Nomination Day in 2013, photo by Dave Cournoyer

The City’s estimated budget for the by-election is about $300,000. That includes $130,000 in wages and salary, $90,000 on communication and legal advertising, and $55,000 on technology. As for what it’ll cost to run, there could be quite a range. Back in the 2013 municipal election, winning Councillors spent between $31,000 and $106,000 with an average of about $73,000. Amarjeet Sohi raised more than $130,000 and spent $85,105.03 to win his seat. My hunch is that less will be spent in the by-election.

As I noted earlier this year, the last by-election on Council took place more than 20 years ago. You can find all the relevant information on the City’s Election page. I guess I better get to work on the dashboard!

Jobber secures $8 million

Local startup Jobber announced on Monday that it has raised $8 million in a Series A round led by OMERS Ventures, with participation from existing investors, Version One Ventures and Point Nine Capital. Founder Sam Pillar wrote about the news on the Jobber blog:

“Jobber’s customers are currently servicing over three and a half million home owners and businesses all over the world, from Vancouver to Toronto, San Francisco to New York, and Johannesburg to Melbourne. It’s amazing to think that our little startup from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada is now being used in over 35 countries to help build better businesses.”

They started just four years ago so it’s pretty incredible to see what they have accomplished already. According to the news release, “more than three and a half million customers have been serviced by businesses using Jobber, with invoices totaling over $1 billion” since they launched back in 2011.

As Eric remarked to me today, there seems to be something about that roughly $8 million mark here in Edmonton. Back in 2012, Mitre Media raised $8.6 million. In 2013, Drivewyze raised $7.5 million in its Series A round. And earlier this year, Granify announced it had raised $9 million in Series A funding.

Congrats Jobber! Another great example of local entrepreneurs building great companies.

EndPoverty Edmonton extended

One of the things Council approved yesterday was an amendment to Bylaw 16765 to “provide additional time for the Task Force for the Elimination of Poverty to fulfill its mandate.” The original deadline for the task force to provide its final report was December 31, 2015 but now they’ve asked for more time “to test the ideas in the Strategy prior to returning to City Council with a comprehensive ten-year implementation plan.” The new deadline will be July 31, 2016 but the task force anticipates reporting back in April. The bylaw expiry has also been changed, to December 31, 2016, to account for time required for questions.

Now let’s tie this back into the first item above! The EndPoverty Edmonton strategy identifies “Make it easier to vote and participate in elections” as “one of the starting points to ending poverty in Edmonton.” In order to get started on addressing that, the City is hosting an online survey to better understand voter needs. Very timely with a by-election coming up in a few months, so take a few minutes to have your say!

You can learn more about EndPoverty Edmonton here. Be sure to follow them on Twitter too.

Uber decision deferred, $41 million for Edmonton City Centre, have your say on the budget

I’m trying something new, where I share some thoughts on a few topical items in one post. Less than I’d write in a full post on each, but more than I’d include in Edmonton Notes. I’ll organize them here. Have feedback? Let me know!

Uber Decision Deferred

Today was the big Council meeting to discuss the proposed Vehicle for Hire Bylaw. Last week the City informed the media they’d need to pickup a press badge in order to be present today, and security was increased at City Hall in anticipation of heated protests. But despite a few minor outbursts during the meeting, it all felt a little underwhelming. Many Councillors used the opportunity to get on their respective soapboxes to complain about whatever – some ripped into Uber, some expressed anger at Administration, and one or two questioned why we regulate taxis at all. But that was the only drama, because in the end Council asked for more information and deferred a decision on the bylaw until late January.

Make no mistake, Uber is going to walk away from this whole situation happy. Why? Because there’s a lot more Edmontonians that want to see Uber here as an option than there are Edmontonians willing to speak up for the taxis. Council is hearing loud and clear from constituents that they want Uber in Edmonton, and that’s the most effective way to get Council to budge on something. And even if the rules that do eventually get passed aren’t ideal for Uber, they may be good enough as Councillor Walters points out. They’re threatening to leave now because it helps them secure a better negotiating position. But once there are rules to play by, it’s a simple business decision – can they make money following those rules or not?

$41 million for Edmonton City Centre

Today via Ted Bauer I saw that Oxford Property Group is planning to invest $41.3 million to “revitalize the entire retail experience” of Edmonton City Centre. A big part of the plan is to “relocate and significantly upgrade” the food courts. Currently located on the lowest level of the mall, one on the west and one on the east, the existing food courts will be consolidated centrally on the top level (as is now common in other malls and shopping centres).

Edmonton City Centre
Edmonton City Centre, photo by IQRemix

The news release mentions that “over 23,000 new residents are expected to be living downtown by 2019.” It’s great to see that Edmonton City Centre is looking at this as an opportunity and that they’re willing to invest in order to compete with Ice District. There are already a lot of empty spaces in the mall, including many that have been empty for months or even years. With a new hotel, new theatre, and lots of other retail moving just a block or two away into new buildings in Ice District, it was starting to look like Edmonton City Centre would be even emptier in just a few years.

I would suggest this investment is the minimum necessary in order for Edmonton City Centre to compete. And their relative silence on all the development happening downtown was not inspiring much confidence, so this is a nice surprise. But let’s keep it real, ok? Here’s what the Oxford site currently says:

“There’s a huge buzz coming out of downtown Edmonton—and it’s resonating entirely from Edmonton City Centre.”

That’s a bit of a stretch! Still, good to see them willing to make a play for a piece of the pie.

Have your say on the 2016-2018 Operating Budget

We’re in the middle of budget season, as you are probably aware. On Monday, November 23 a non-statutory public hearing will be held at City Hall from 1:30pm to 9:30pm. It’s an opportunity for you to speak directly to City Council about the proposed budget before a decision is made in early December. If you’d like to register to speak, you can do so here.

The full budget is available at edmonton.ca/budget2016. If you’d like a friendly introduction and overview to the budget, check out yegcitybudget.ca. And finally, if you’re a geek like me and want to dig into the data, budget.edmonton.ca is the best place to start.

The final budget discussions get underway starting November 27.