The Pulse: Feb. 28, 2023

A desire to draw attention to the food scene in Mill Woods has grown into a new dining week offering deals at nine restaurants in southeast Edmonton.

The inaugural Greater Mill Woods Dining Week will take place from March 3 to 12. Each participating business will feature an item priced at $15 or less.

Event lead Daniel Witte said the idea was sparked during a participatory budgeting session with Coun. Keren Tang of Ward Karhiio last summer. "Participatory budgeting empowers people to create small-scale projects that would make an impact on people in the ward," said Witte.

Volunteers were given a maximum of $2,000 to carry out projects. So far, they have included a wide range of activities, including painting a Pride walkway at Mill Woods Transit Centre (which Witte was also involved in), adding Google Street View for bike lanes, and creating welcome packages for new refugees.

Witte noticed that some of the restaurants he frequented in his neighbourhood were struggling. "I love these restaurants, but it would be great if more people knew about them," said Witte. "We wanted to have a dining week to spread the word about some of these places to help them."

Tang connected Witte with the Mill Woods Presidents' Council, a body comprised of representatives from all community leagues located in Mill Woods, The Meadows, and Ellerslie. The council offered volunteers with event experience. It also broadened the boundaries to include parts of Ward Sspomitapi. Coun. Jo-Anne Wright of Sspomitapi stepped up to match the $2,000 in funding to support the project.

As a result, the Greater Mill Woods Dining Week encompasses businesses in the heart of Mill Woods, such as the 2nd Floor Café inside the Mill Woods Seniors Association, as well as restaurants situated in newer communities further south, such as Woodshed Burgers and Tiffin India's Fresh Kitchen in Ellerslie.

• The city's extreme weather response, which was activated Feb. 20, will end on March 1 at 6am. Edmonton Transit Service will continue to operate a shuttle bus to bring vulnerable people to warm shelters when temperatures fall below -10°C, and the Boyle Street Community Services warming bus will operate for the rest of winter regardless of temperature.
• The province's substance use surveillance data shows that Edmonton paramedics have responded to more opioid-related events than Calgary paramedics for the past two years. EMS responded to 3,477 opioid-related calls in Edmonton in 2022, compared to 1,761 in Calgary. Ginetta Salvalaggio, a professor with the University of Alberta's Department of Family Medicine, said the difference may be a result of macroeconomic trends, such as employment and housing, but is not due to differences in prescribing. Across Alberta, men represented a disproportionate number of drug poisoning deaths in 2022, and most deaths occurred among people aged 35-39.
• City council's community and public services committee voted 3-2 to allow Edmontonians to drink alcohol in 18 designated parks on a permanent basis after hearing the results of last year's pilot project. A telephone survey of 409 people last summer found 80% supported allowing alcohol in parks. Bylaw officers handed out zero tickets and gave out only three warnings in 2022 related to alcohol consumption in the designated parks. Councillors Jennifer Rice and Karen Principe voted against the proposal, citing safety concerns.
• The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, which represents more than 1,700 companies, has released its 2023 provincial budget recommendations, which revolve around innovation and diversification, skill development, labour attraction, and community safety. Among its recommendations are a call for investment in the Edmonton International Airport (YEG), the establishment of a direct bus route between YEG and downtown, support in addressing downtown social disorder, and the creation of an innovation fund modelled after the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund. The 2023 provincial budget will be released Feb. 28 at 3:15pm.
• The province announced its plan to spend $125 million as part of its 2023 budget to help MacEwan University construct a new building for its School of Business. The seven-storey building at 109 Street and 105 Avenue will allow the school to increase enrolment by 7,500 students and further its goal of reaching 30,000 students by 2030. Construction is slated to begin in 2024, with the building expected to open by 2027.
• World Waterpark in West Edmonton Mall is getting two new waterslides. Once the slides open this summer, visitors will be able to suggest names for them for a chance to win a Family Multi-Play Pass.
• Alberta has signed a 10-year, $24-billion agreement in principle with the federal government for healthcare funding. The agreement includes $2.9 billion for shared health priorities and $233 million for a one-time boost to the Canada Health Transfer to address immediate needs.

Episode 210 of Speaking Municipally goes deep into city council's decision to reopen a downtown stretch of 102 Avenue to vehicle traffic despite asking administration eight months ago for a bylaw to close it to cars.

As disappointed as co-hosts Troy Pavlek and Mack Male were about the decision, they were even more concerned about what this suggests about council's decision-making process.

"There's no coherence in the sort of things that come forward and the way that they discuss them a few months later," Male said. "It really makes me concerned about some of the other upcoming important decisions that we know are going to be in front of us in the next few months."

Though veteran councillors Sarah Hamilton and Tim Cartmell have expressed concerns in other contexts about re-litigation, Pavlek noted that neither seemed concerned about overturning an earlier decision to run a pilot project closing the avenue from 99 Street to 103 Street.

"This was the very definition of reopening past business," he said.

Council went on to ask for a report detailing uses and interactions on 102 Avenue in the six months after the LRT starts running. This did not fill our city hall watchers with confidence either.

"I think the ambition of this request is much higher than what we're going to see from it," Pavlek said.

Hear more thoughts on the 102 Avenue decision and the extra money approved for the 103A Avenue Pedway on the Feb. 24 episode of Taproot's civic affairs podcast.

Photo: Councillors Andrew Knack and Jo-Anne Wright, seen here in October 2021, were on opposite sides of the vote on keeping 102 Avenue closed to cars. (Mack Male/Flickr)