When Airdrie's current City Council was elected, they set out a number of strategic priorities for their term in office.

Those priorities include expanding community facilities (namely a west side recreation facility and a new library), expanding and diversifying citizen engagement, functional long-term transportation planning (including the 40th Avenue overpass and the Transportation Master Plan), attract, retain and grow business/industry, the revitalization of the downtown, and increasing affordable housing options.

At the last City Council meeting, held on May 19, city staff presented a status update on the strategic priorities. Dorian Kachur, Manager of Corporate Strategy, Health, Safety, and Security said while progress has been made in a number of areas, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted progress in others. 

"The operating environment has changed significantly," Kachur said. "We've had a pandemic that has certainly impacted many operations and opportunities for council's priorities to progress on some fronts. Prior to that even, the oil and gas sector struggles were certainly impacting the province as a whole and Airdrie was not exempt from that. So recovery is going to be a slow process and things may well not go back to the way they were before."

Kachur pointed out that while council's term is four years, many of the priorities set out are 10-year horizons or more and that staff has not completely stopped progress.

When it comes to the status of a new rec centre, staff recommended that the community survey and stakeholder consultation process be put on hold since they require significant public engagement and it's not a good time to do that thanks to COVID-19. In regards to the new library, a Project Manager will need to be hired to move the project ahead, however recruitment has been delayed due to the pandemic.

Many of the transportation plans are contingent on funding, so city staff recommended continuing to pursue funding opportunities. The City has already applied for stimulus funding for 40th Avenue and are waiting to hear back.

Rather than focusing on attracting and growing business, staff recommended a change of direction to assisting business recovery in Airdrie. The COVID-19 pandemic has not had a significant impact on the development of Airdrie's Downtown Plan, so work is expected to continue as usual.

Staff who had been working on a Housing Strategy Report have been redirected for the time being to manage the City’s Emergency Social Services Plan, therefore the Housing Strategy Report is expected to be delayed until the fourth quarter of 2020.

Kachur asked that the status update on the strategic priorities be accepted as information, acknowledging that there may be some delays or shifts in progress, however Mayor Peter Brown had some reservations.

Brown said he didn't feel the update provided enough information on things like cost, the impact to the city, or where tax rates would need to be to meet any or all of the goals, especially without knowing how long the pandemic will continue.

"How can we go toward building something if we don't even know we can open it to the public and how long this thing will go for," Brown questioned. "I don't know how we can go forward knowing that we just don't know what the future is going to hold for this organization. We'll have zero certainly over the next two to three months on any of this stuff, even longer."

Councillor Tina Petro was also opposed to receiving the report as information, however the rest of council voted to accept the staff recommendations. 

"We all still have the same strategic priorities, how they are going to roll out is what has changed. The timing of them may change," said Councillor Ron Chapman, expressing his support for the staff's recommended changes.

Councillor Kelly Hegg said the good news is that the priorities are all still there.

"Staff is working on each of them and components of each of them in different ways," Hegg said. "Some of our big ticket projects are the ones that are being slowed down or put on hold for now until we can decide how to move forward with those."

 

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