St. Albert city council starts sitting again on Monday after a month off.
As council heads into the last two months of its first year, there are still some controversial issues on the agenda.
“A really big issue will be park and ride, and what we do with park and ride as well as kind of the future of public transit governance model coming out of the Capital Region Board,” said Mayor Nolan Crouse.
Crouse was able to give a highlight reel of some of the topics pencilled in for discussion this fall.
“There’s going to be some work done on some of the old public works sites and how we deal with public works sites in the future,” Crouse said.
Long-term school site planning, grants and social framework items will all be making an appearance.
The Safe Journeys to School project will return. Grants will likely be handed out this fall as well.
Complex issues like offsite levies and standard development agreements will be before council.
“These are difficult things to comprehend for all of us,” Crouse said.
The outstanding, and always controversial topic of LRT’s future in St. Albert should stir things up at council when the functional alignment study makes an appearance, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 27.
At September’s standing committee on finance meeting, both the utility fiscal policy and preliminary information on the 2015 budget will be discussed.
Crouse said there might be some closure on the utility fiscal policy issue, but “we’ll see.”
While preliminary information will be provided in September, the 2015 budget process really kicks off at the end of October when city manager Patrick Draper gives his budget overview presentation.
Crouse predicted a hot topic will be the upcoming public hearing on Aug. 25 to add medical marijuana production facilities as a discretionary use in some land districts in St. Albert.
As the new animal bylaw takes effect, the mayor expects to see some follow-up on how to add or subtract off-leash areas.
There could be some committee-shuffling as council undertakes its annual organizational meeting Oct. 27.
