PuneetaMcBryan

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.

We may not realize it but cities look for ways to better promote themselves to individuals, groups and businesses and Edmonton has fallen behind when it comes to how it promotes and talks about itself to the outside world. On August 29th an event entitled TALKING UP EDMONTON included a panel which focused on identifying ways to speak more positively about the city. Although development organizations have a role to play the panelists said improved civic pride and Edmonton evangelism is best when it happens at the grassroots level and that means us.