TimCartmell

On Monday, Jason Meliefste, the city's point man regarding infrastructure delivery and services held a news conference to provide an update on upcoming bridge renewal projects. The Wellington, Low Level and Dawson bridges are slated for repairs with High Level Bridge repairs postponed for another year. Although the update was intended to alleviate the concerns of downtown businesses, Downtown Business Association executive director Puneeta McBryan said the scope and timeline of the projects didn’t set her mind completely at ease.

Given the recent history of the city administration’s ability to build these big projects on time and with minimal disruption time will tell if the Downtown Business Association's concerns are warranted or not.

Last spring Alberta's UCP government announced that parties will be able to run candidates in municipal elections beginning in Calgary and Edmonton. Even though 70 percent of respondents to the government's public survey disagreed with introducing the party system, the government passed legislation leaving people and political pundits questioning and confused. Some pundit comments are below and the public can share their comments and thoughts on focaLOCAL.com

MacEwan University associate professor Brendan Boyd says the party system is where independent thought goes to die which leads to what people call the democratic deficit. Ric McIver, Minister of Municipal Affairs says political parties make candidates' positions on issues more transparent. City councillor Andrew Knack believes freedom of expression and choice will be lost with the change. Councillor and mayoral candidate Tim Cartmell plans to form his own party, which he said will not be partisan. Doug Main who is spokesperson for The Principled Accountable Coalition of Edmonton (PACE) says they are not describing themselves as a right, centre or left-leaning ideology.

Existing provincial and federal parties cannot register in Alberta's civic election under the province's rules which means it is incumbent upon any parties to enlighten and inform citizens just who they are and what they stand for.

The final rounds of discussion/debate of next year's budget are taking place and according to the Journal's Keith Gerein the final vote split along ideological lines. The four "no" votes came from the the four most conservative councillors; Sarah Hamilton, Jennifer Rice, Karen Principe and Tim Cartmell. The councillors on the winning side of the debate expressed irritation at the dissenters especially Jennifer Rice and mayoral candidate Tim Cartmell. who noted that even though next year’s hike was lowered to 6.1 per cent, this council's cumulative record still amounts to a nearly 22 per cent increase over four years.

It probably is not far fetched to think that the budget debate may be a preview of some councillor's platforms for next year's election.

In 2018, the High Solids Anaerobic Digestion Facility (HSADF) which is the part of Edmonton's Waste Management Centre was built to process organics. At the time it was built and opened the HSADF cost taxpayers about $45 million. A special report presented to the city’s utility committee on Tuesday found the HSADF facility is not financially or operationally viable and other options must be considered.

Years ago someone coined the term GIGO which is an acronym that stands for Garbage In = Garbage Out. Tuesday's report to the city’s utility committee on the High Solids Anaerobic Digestion Facility (HSADF) which the part of the acronym akin to Garbage In. Tim Cartmell, who chairs the utility committee expressed his frustration with the lack of information on net-present value number, capital costs number, operating costs and analysis on the system. In short, it is the part of the acronym akin to Garbage Out.

I admit that I'm a little skeptical about elected officials who talk about things that many people say just make "common sense". I appreciate what Tim Cartmell shared in the article below and hope Mayor Sohi and other council members would exhibit similar "common sense".

This story is very disturbing and makes me question for how many more things does the end justify the means and are done in secret? I think Edmonton voters should be concerned that only Councillors Sarah Hamilton, Tim Cartmell, Jennifer Rice and Karen Principe opposed the secret deal. What does this say about the integrity of the other Councillors?