The Pulse: May 31, 2022

A post-apocalyptic city where hockey matters more than ever and a dreamscape where every dead nightclub is alive again are among the imaginary Edmontons to be enjoyed in the upcoming Alberta Comics Anthology.

"Home" is the theme of the anthology, to be released on Sept. 14 and launched at the Edmonton Expo, which has early-bird tickets available until May 31.

"It's such a loaded word – home," said Alexander Finbow of Renegade Arts Entertainment, the Canmore-based publisher of comics, graphic novels, and audiobooks that is behind the collection. "People run away from the place that they grew up as fast as possible, they never want to go back to that place. Or people that have run to somewhere and discovered their home and made their home somewhere new and unexpected. It's a very fertile jumping-off point for storytelling, and it ties in nicely with this being our home province."

Finbow said Renegade Arts received diverse responses to the call for submissions, spanning "kitchen sink dramas," comedy, fantasy, and horror. For some writers, the anthology marks their professional entry into the world of graphic storytelling. Others are well-established in the industry, and in cartoonist Jeff Martin's case, have already spent considerable time reflecting on the theme in their art.

"I've grown up here in Edmonton. I have a connection with the place. And I think it is just as interesting as any of the over-represented American cities. People are just as interesting here as they are everywhere else," Martin said of his fondness for local settings in his stories. His long-running Hockeypocalypse series follows the Edmonton Atomics hockey team through a post-apocalyptic Canada where conflicts and resource disputes are settled on the ice.

Graphic designer and writer Sylvia Moon said her experience of living in downtown Edmonton was a source of aggravation that had to be overcome before it could be any inspiration for a story.

"The hardest part was thinking of an idea that wasn't ending with, 'Just burn it down,'" Moon joked about brainstorming ideas in the months leading up to the submission deadline, which coincided with Alberta's bungled "Best Summer Ever" strategy and the depressingly well-attended anti-mask rallies.

"I used to live right by the (legislature). They were so loud I couldn't do anything quiet in my apartment Saturday afternoon," Moon said. "The concept was to think of a story of home, and I was like, 'I can't! I'm so mad about it!'"

• Two days after Justice Minister Tyler Shandro ordered Edmonton to develop a safety action plan within two weeks, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi's office confirmed new plans for a Chinatown post-COVID vibrancy fund, which will come from the city's $1-million reserve and be dispersed by the Chinatown and Area Business Association. The plan also includes a $300,000 grant for the association to pay for private security, a Chinatown needle cleanup program, daily street and alley cleaning, additional public washrooms, and more. Sohi also reiterated that the root social causes of safety issues are the province's responsibility. Sohi and Shandro are scheduled to discuss the plan on May 31.
• Construction has officially begun on the 102-Street-to-Lewis-Farms portion of the Valley Line West LRT project. Lewis Farms will eventually host a transit centre and expanded park-and-ride services. Construction on the line began in 2021, and the city currently expects it to be finished by 2027.
• The Lofts is a new comic book about the people who were permanently evicted after the Katz Group bought the A. MacDonald Building in 2016 as part of ICE District development. Written by Rylan Kafara and illustrated by Spyder Yardley-Jones, the book was launched at a pay-what-you-can event at The Aviary on May 28 along with live music.
• The mother of a man who died after an altercation with staff in August 2021 at the Edmonton Remand Centre is stunned and angry after seeing his autopsy report, Postmedia reports. Daniel Winston Robinson, 50, who was jailed for an unpaid ticket for driving without insurance, was handcuffed and held in a prone position for some time. He suffered "prone restraint cardiac arrest," which led to brain damage and death six days later. "This was not an accident," said Marilyn Hayward, but the Edmonton Police Service deemed the death non-criminal. A fatality inquiry has not yet been scheduled.
• The city's Transforming Edmonton blog profiled the Community Outreach Transit Team, part of a two-year pilot it launched in 2021 in partnership with Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society to "provide compassionate support" to people in the transit system experiencing difficulties related to housing, mental health, substance use, and finances. The team aims to build "trust and relationships that help people work towards long-term solutions."
• The Edmonton Elks have recruited Ashley Callingbull, a model from Enoch Cree Nation, as a new game-day host, joining CISN Country's Chris Scheetz. Callingbull is the first Indigenous woman to win Mrs. Universe and to appear in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. "Being a proud member of Treaty Six, I've always been a fan of Edmonton's sports teams. I'm excited to join one of my hometown teams with the Edmonton Elks," she said in a news release.
• The Western Conference final between the Edmonton Oilers and the Colorado Avalanche pits 2015's No. 1 draft pick, Connor McDavid, against 2013's No. 1 pick, Nathan MacKinnon, notes the Canadian Press. They're now leading teams that haven't been to the final four since 2006 and 2002 respectively.
• A well-known fence at 102 Avenue and 116 Street that depicted Nastassja Kinski's famous nude pose with a snake has been repainted with nine Oilers jerseys. Excitement arising from the team's recent playoff ascent has been "overwhelming," said Al Lawrence, who painted the fence with his roommate Warren Silampas. "I could sit outside here, and it's just constant positive responses, and people are really just behind this fence."

Correction: An earlier version of Headlines stated the launch event for The Lofts was on June 4, when it in fact happened on May 28.

Earlier this year, city administration reported that the snow removal budget had gone down 14% since 2017, while during the same time there was a 21% increase in roadway lane kilometres being serviced. But how has Edmonton added a fifth of its lanes to the network in a single budget cycle?

The answer has more to do with what is being counted than with how Edmonton has grown.

New neighbourhoods and annexations do account for some of the extra distance. Another factor is the use of more accurate monitoring measures and the manual evaluation of lane length completed for the 2022 Snow and Ice Control report. Where data is not available for a road segment, the city relies on a default minimum for its estimates, causing some variance in yearly reported totals.

However, the largest contribution to the increase, is not new roads but existing alleyways that were only recently included in these figures.

"As of the August 2021 Snow and Ice Policy update, alleys are now being recorded as they receive maintenance with residential clearing cycles. Previously they were not a part of the totals," Travis Kennedy, acting director of infrastructure operations, said in an email to Taproot.

Including alleyways in their reporting added 1,250 to 1,300 kilometres to the city's inventory of roads and active pathways, Kennedy estimated. Although the 21% increase since 2017 does not indicate a dramatic addition of new roads, city officials told council that crews are overburdened by existing service expectations for snow removal and staff shortages caused by budget cuts.

"Due to not having enough staff, we were only able to use an average of 57 trucks after a snow event," deputy city manager Gord Cebryk told the community and public services committee on April 25. "That's equivalent to a 43% utilization of our entire inventory of vehicles."

To address this, city operations proposed establishing new service standards – how much snow is expected to be cleared and how quickly – and increasing funding for crews and equipment. One option given would see $42 million added to the current base budget and adjusted service standards to match available resources. The second option would bring snow and ice removal in line with the current service standards, requiring an additional $106 million to do so.

Funding decisions will be made as part of the 2023–2026 operating and capital budgets in November.

Chart: Estimates for the years 2010 to 2021 come from Travis Kennedy, acting director of infrastructure operations. The 2022 figure is taken from the snow and ice control report presented to committee in April 2022, with the orange block representing the estimated addition of lane kilometres from alleys that are now included in the total.