The Pulse: March 4, 2021

Edmonton city council said it is unlikely that it will use a community revitalization levy (CRL) to help fund LRT projects, and may not use them for other city projects in the future either.

In an executive committee meeting on March 1, Mayor Don Iveson concluded that future LRT lines will continue to be paid for out of the city’s regular budget instead.

"The incentives aren't there, and we can do this using general revenues," he said.

CRLs use projected future tax revenues to fund projects inside designated boundaries. The city takes on debt to finance the projects, and as they are completed, property values go up and new development is attracted to the area. The municipality can then pay back the debt with the subsequent increase in property tax revenues.

In Alberta, the provincial government also loans its share of the future increase in revenues, collected through the education property tax, towards the city's fund.

"That is really the big cherry on top, and the reason municipalities tend to go down a CRL route in Alberta," Cate Watt, branch manager for the city's assessment and taxation department, told Taproot’s Speaking Municipally. "The province forgoes its education tax for that uplift, and the municipality is allowed to garner that ... and put it into the CRL pool as well."

The City of Edmonton currently has three active CRLs, one of which helped fund the construction of Rogers Place. On Monday, executive committee met to discuss the possibility of creating a new CRL to fund future LRT lines, which could contribute to the city's transit-oriented development goals.

• Alberta is extending the amount of time between the first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccinations, up to four months. The move follows a recommendation from the National Advisory Committee on Immunizations.
• The province has confirmed the first long-term care outbreak linked to a COVID-19 variant. It is at Churchill Manor in Edmonton, where there are 19 positive cases of the variant strain.
• Most Edmonton Public Library branches will reopen with limited in-person services starting Monday, March 15. The contactless Library Takeout service will continue to be available.
• Clarisse Bosco and Gallican Buki have started a project called Living With Black Skin, which rolled out during Black History Month. "They wanted to showcase the unique lives of other young, Black people like themselves," writes CBC.
• The Edmonton Food Bank has raised 10% of the money it needs to replace its forklift, which needs to be done because its too old. The equipment is key to move food on a regular basis.
• "Some University of Alberta students are calling for an end to the use of online monitoring services meant to prevent cheating, as final exams approach," reports CBC. The online monitoring services flag things like "students reading questions aloud, going to the bathroom or people walking in the background of the camera's view, a problem for people living with roommates or family."

This week's news that Common Ground Arts Society is bringing the RISER program to the city for the 2022 season was a welcome bit of looking-forward for an industry devastated by a year of closures and cancellations. 

Initially created by Toronto's Why Not Theatre to address challenges for independent theatre producers, RISER is a collaborative producing model that connects underserved artists with established leaders in the community. Where infrastructure and underused space are available, RISER steps in to help pool resources, with participants receiving in-kind support like rehearsal space and technical staff to reduce the costs of production.

“It’s a win-win for everyone," said Beth Dart, Common Ground's artistic producer. "We share the risk, we resource the next generation of theatre artists, we invest in the future of Canadian theatre, and we close the mentorship gap that exists in those in-between years when artists need the most support to transition from emerging to established.” 

Dart first learned of RISER in 2016, when the multi-award-winning two-hander Mouthpiece — created with RISER Toronto in 2015 — was generating buzz at the Chinook Series. "We've been keeping an eye on the RISER Project since then," Dart told Taproot.

The City of Edmonton will gradually open five of its recreation centres in March for low-intensity individual and group workouts.

City manager Andre Corbould announced the reopening in an emergency advisory committee meeting on March 3. The decision follows the provincial government’s announcement on March 1 that it would ease restrictions to allow scheduled low-intensity fitness activities as part of the second step of its reopening plan.

"We support the province’s go slow strategy as it maintains an appropriate level of safety for our community and relies on science to guide the pace of reopening,” Corbould said.

The facilities closed on Dec. 12 following provincial health restrictions, and some of them reopened to school groups and sports organizations on Feb. 11.

On this day in 1980, the Edmonton Journal's Jim Matheson raised the alarm about a lack of scoring from the Oilers' best player.

"In the last seven games, [Wayne] Gretzky and the rest of the Oiler forwards have hit for a measly eight goals," he wrote from Long Island, where Edmonton was set to meet the New York Islanders.

Forty-one years later, Matheson was expressing similar concerns about the Oilers and their current best player.

"When you've been the hottest team in the league for a month, and you lose two straight and can't score against the back-up or the back-up to the back-up, it's obviously not a good look for Connor McDavid and Co.," he wrote this week after the Oilers were twice shut out by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Oilers did lose that 1980 game, but it wasn't Gretzky's fault — he had two goals and two assists in a 6-4 loss. New York ended up winning the Stanley Cup that year, with Edmonton losing to Philadelphia in the first round. The Islanders' dynasty continued until 1984 when the Oilers beat them in the finals, starting their own run of Stanley Cups, all of which Matheson covered.

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

• SkirtsAfire Reimagined runs March 4-14 online and in Old Strathcona, with visual art installations in COVID-19 safe areas around Whyte Avenue. Taproot co-founder Karen Unland hosted a podcast panel on Dana Wylie's Makings of a Voice song cycle.
• We Lit, Alberta's Afro-Indie book fair, showcases a variety of Black authors and their works on March 6.
• Alberta Council for the Ukrainian Arts (ACUA) is displaying Threads That Connect, curated by Larisa Sembaliuk Cheladyn, until March 20 at the ACUA Gallery. The gallery is limited to 6 people at a time as per COVID-19 regulations.
• Spazio Performativo's front window gallery features work by a new visual artist each month, curated by Halie Finney. Gracie Safranovich's May Flowers is a series of embroidered illustrations depicting Alberta wildflowers, on display to March 31.