St. Albert Minute: Public Art, User Fees, and Ambulance Response Times

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

This Week In St. Albert:

• The Standing Committee of the Whole will meet on Tuesday at 9:30 am. On the agenda is a Community Social Needs Assessment and a feasibility study report regarding youth transitional housing. Also on Tuesday, at 6:30 pm, the Policing Committee will meet to discuss Q1 crime statistics.
  
  
• On Wednesday, at 6:00 pm, the Arts Development Advisory Committee will meet. The agenda includes an update on the Downtown Banner Project and its timelines, as well as an opportunity for public art in Element Park. Two funding requests, one for the International Children’s Festival of the Arts, and another for a statue of St. Albert The Great, will be considered.
  
  
• The Internal Auditor And Internal Audit Steering Committee will meet on Thursday at 1:30 pm. Up for discussion is a Cyber Security Audit, among other items.

Last Week In St. Albert:

• St. Albert has finally made it to Environment and Climate Change Canada’s weather map. St. Albert and about 9,200 other places can now be found and bookmarked via a web browser. The locations are drawn from the Canadian Geographical Naming Database, which is managed by Natural Resources Canada. The long range forecast comes from Edmonton International Airport while the current conditions are measured from a station along Villeneuve Road.
  
  
• Council has approved the first reading of a bylaw to increase some user fees. The increases would start in January 2025 and are expected to generate an additional $97,000 for the City. New fees include a 2.1% credit card processing fee for tax and utility payments, while fees for recreational facilities and artist spaces will also rise slightly. Transit fares will remain unchanged due to a 14% increase in ridership. The City attributes this rise to the introduction of the ARC card and the renegotiated U-Pass for University of Alberta students.
  
  
• Ambulance response times in St. Albert have improved following changes introduced by Alberta Health Services in March 2023. These include adding more ambulances in major cities and reducing hospital offload times to 45 minutes, resulting in paramedics spending less time waiting at hospitals. The average response time for urgent calls dropped significantly, and St. Albert ambulances are now handling more calls within the city, up 12% from 2022. The improvements have also boosted morale among paramedics, who report more time spent within the community. Local paramedics say they are optimistic that the changes will continue to benefit the system.

-----

Donate:

Common Sense St. Albert doesn't accept any government funding and never will. We think you should be free to choose, for yourself, which organizations to support. If you're in a position to contribute financially, you can make a donation here.

-----

Share:

If you're not in a position to donate, we understand, but if you appreciate our work, you can help by spreading our message. Please email this post to your friends, share it on Facebook or Twitter, and help make sure every resident knows what's really going on at City Hall.