The Pulse: Dec. 10, 2020

After a full day of budget deliberations on Dec. 9, city council is on track to approve a 0% tax increase for 2021.

Administration proposed 94 budget reduction strategies totalling $56.5 million to bring the 3.2% tax increase council approved in the spring down to zero. The proposed cuts included $18.2 million in workforce reductions, $13.2 million in service-level reductions, and $9.7 million in efficiencies. While council largely supported administration's proposal, it approved nearly a dozen amendments throughout the day.

A plan to reduce service hours for peak and rapid frequency routes in next year's Bus Network Redesign would have saved $947,000 in 2021 and $466,000 in 2022, but council unanimously rejected the proposal.

"If we're going to create these 15-minute neighbourhoods...we need to actually have the service to back that up," said Coun. Andrew Knack, referring to the districts contained in the City Plan that council approved on Dec. 7.

Edmonton's current poet laureate delivered a highly-charged, devastating 615-word performance in council's virtual chambers on Monday. Patel noted that her poem's word count — which represented the reported number of Albertan lives lost as of Dec. 7 — will grow as the total number of people who pass away from COVID-19 rises in the weeks to come. 

On this day in 1920, Hyman King promised a "square deal" for Edmontonians in a newspaper ad outlining his platform for alderman, the title for city councillors at the time. Among his promises was to put "Edmonton first, last and all the time," the removal of "all undesirable characters and parasites who are draining the city coffers," and a "revolution in the administering of the Street Railway."

His ideas apparently did not catch on, as he finished dead last in the election held Dec. 13, 1920, amassing just 760 votes, says the City of Edmonton's historical election results. It may not have been such a great job that he missed out on, however. In the same election, Edmontonians voted 8,811 to 4,234 against paying aldermen, confirming with more zeal their verdict from the previous year, when the referendum on paying aldermen was defeated 5,771 to 4,152. (Municipal elections were annual back then.)

King ran again in 1921, and again finished last.

This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist @revRecluse.

• Until Dec. 20, the University Hospital Foundation is presenting its Virtual Festival of Trees.
• Mile Zero Dance presents Matthew Creeasian’s Midwinter Dreams on Dec. 12, a live-streamed, curated variety of short sets from interdisciplinary artists.
• The U of A's Studio Theatre presents Chrysothemis by Meg Braem in a digital on-demand performance, viewable from Dec. 12-Jan. 1.
• Script Salon goes online for the holidays with a reading of Under the Mistletoe by James Hutchison on Dec. 13.

• Health Canada has approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, and Canadians could start being vaccinated as early as next week. Learn more about Alberta's plan for vaccine distribution here.
• CBC columnist Graham Thomson wrote about Premier Jason Kenney and his decision to implement tough new restrictions on the province this week.
• Roger Levesque published the second article about his cancer diagnosis in a special series to the Edmonton Journal.
• A local vet is warning Edmontonians about a kennel cough outbreak among dogs in the city.
• The City of Edmonton may lay off 400 employees in response to the latest COVID-19 restrictions, reports CBC News.