St. Albert Minute: Issue 122

St. Albert Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of St. Albert politics

📅 This Week In St. Albert: 📅

• There are no Council or Committee meetings this week. The next meeting on the calendar is a meeting of the Subdivision & Development Appeal Board, which takes place on August 5th.
  
  
• City Council has voted down a motion from Councillor Sheena Hughes that would have barred actors over the age of 19 from performing in St. Albert Children's Theatre productions, moving adult performers instead into separate Community Theatre shows. Hughes argued the program was intended exclusively for children and youth, saying adults should not be taking roles away from children capable of performing them, and that parents in the program had contacted her with concerns about the direction it was trending. The motion was defeated 3-4, with Councillors Shelley Biermanski and Sandy Clark joining Hughes in favour, while Mayor Scott Olivieri and Councillors Neil Korotash, Ken MacKay, and Amanda Patrick voted against. MacKay said he appreciated the intent to protect opportunities for young performers but worried the motion crossed the line between governance and program delivery, a concern Korotash shared in saying he did not feel qualified to dictate how the City delivers theatre programming. Community Services Director Elizabeth Budd told Council that adult participation has been part of the program for decades, currently sits at about 20% of production casts compared to 80% children, and that youth participation in each performance has been increasing. 
  
  
• Atkinson Construction has broken ground on a new headquarters in St. Albert, a project worth more than $7 million that the company says will be its long-term home. Work began on July 17th on a three-storey building on Rowland Crescent, land the general contractor has owned for several years, with a coworking space on the main floor, offices above, and rooftop amenities. President Burke Atkinson said the design allows the office team to grow by about 40%. The company has expanded from 6 office staff in 2020 to nearly 40 employees today, and the new building will initially hold more than 30 office workers, with room to reach roughly 50. Construction is expected to take about 12 months. Mayor Scott Olivieri welcomed the investment, saying developments like it create jobs and strengthen the local economy, while Councillor Shelley Biermanski praised the firm as an experienced and creative builder.
  
  
• Residents along the border of northwest Edmonton and St. Albert say erosion along 137 Avenue, which has completely destroyed the roadway over Horseshoe Creek, has cut off an important access route for emergency vehicles. Raf Tenderenda, president of the Big Lake Community League and a resident of the Starling neighbourhood, says he has been warning EPCOR and the City of Edmonton since 2023 that the culvert under the road was undersized, which gradually eroded the roadway above until it became impassable. EPCOR began a culvert improvement project in 2024 but paused it after learning of plans to realign 137 Avenue, opting for a monitoring and maintenance program rather than building infrastructure that would soon be demolished. The utility says it was only after the recent heavy rainfall that the damage became significant enough to warrant near-term action, and crews are now stabilizing the site with a temporary dam and bypass pumping to redirect flows away from the crossing. Tenderenda rejects that explanation, describing the closure as "the result of inaction for the last three years". He warns that residents fear emergency responders would take too long to reach the neighbourhood in a major medical emergency or fire.
  
  
• Finally, gas prices in St. Albert are continuing to climb, with the Canadian average for regular gasoline reaching 180.3 cents per litre as of midday on Thursday, July 23rd, up 2 cents from the previous day and more than 8 cents higher than the week before. The lowest reported price in St. Albert was at Hughes on Riel Drive, where regular gasoline was listed at 163.9 cents per litre. Other lower-priced options included 7-Eleven on St. Albert Trail at 167.9 cents per litre, along with Esso and Circle K on Sir Winston Churchill Avenue and Esso on Carnegie Drive, both at 172.9 cents per litre. At the other end, Safeway and Shell on St. Albert Trail were reporting 181.1 cents per litre, while Shell, Petro-Canada, Chevron, and other locations were listed at 181.9 cents per litre. That put the gap between the lowest and highest reported prices in the city at nearly 18 cents per litre. While some St. Albert stations remain below the Canadian average, prices vary widely across the city, with some locations now sitting above the national benchmark. 

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