As Airdrie Mayor Peter Brown reflects on 2018 he's pleased with many things.  

Brown says there's been a lot of great things that have happened in the city in the past year.  From upgrades in infrastructure, major projects, roadworks, and pathways.  The work of the RCMP and Municipal Enforcement to lower a number of crime rates that had been trending higher.  Success in public engagement, which has been one of the city's mandates, to meet with the public and find out where they want to take Airdrie,

Brown explains that one of the things that's brought him the most satisfaction has been the ongoing work by City of Airdrie staff.

"I'm always existentially proud of the work that the administration do here.  If you look at our employees per capita versus any other mid-sized city, I would say not only in Alberta but outside of our province, we do more work per capita than most and they always do it with grace and they're always working hard.  I'm always really proud of the year past as it relates to our employees and the great work they do in our community."

Brown calls 2018 the "year of health" in Airdrie, or at least the year when the focus turned to our health.  He's excited about what possibilities may lie ahead.

"We have the possibility of a Blue Zone initiative coming forward, obviously there's a set of criteria that have to be met before we release any funds.  We also have a great digital health strategy that's moving forward.  We were awarded $250,000 to put together a bid package for March of this year and we have an opportunity to be one of two out ot 10 municipalities for $10 million to put that technology in play in our community.  Health would be one of the things that is on the rise, an awareness around being healthy."

When Brown checks his crystal ball for the future, it's not hard to see what it tells him.  The amazing growth of Airdrie and prioritizing what projects should come first will present ongoing challenges.

"The word growth is always the greatest challenge.  It's really keeping up with infrastructure.  I think if you look at it from a long-term perspective, the cost of bringing in more capacity for water and wastewater from the City of Calgary is extremely expensive.  Repairing the older roads.  Next year we'll have a budget, just to do a line on Main Street of bringing up some old pipe, it's about $6.5 million bucks, and I don't think it's longer than a kilometre.  There's a lot of costs associated with maintenance.  Obviously, you saw a significant tax increase this year, over any other year in the last 30 years, and really that was as a result of some of the costs that are coming."

Brown lists some of the costs associated with growth that are facing the city such as building and staffing a new public library and a fourth firehall.

"I think our challenge going forward is going to be managing that and really prioritizing what we want to do first.  Sometimes that may mean we have to delay things, sometimes that may mean we need to make a decision to go ahead with a project, possibly borrow more money or create a debenture so that we can expedite some of these things that are going to be important in the future for our community."

Brown says in 2019 the key word for him is "uncertainty."  

"We're (City of Airdrie) certain.  We have a budget, we have a plan, we know what we're doing going forward in 2019, but we don't know what's going to happen provincially and we don't know what's going to happen federally.  It's going to be really interesting to see how this is all going to unfold, whether we have a new government, whether we have the same government and what that will look like."

For Brown, health isn't just about how the city is doing.  In the year ahead, he's making his own personal health a priority.

"I've been sort of going down this health journey for about six months now and I would say I want to continue down that path.  I have to lose roughly another 20 pounds and do some other work that I'm starting here in January to feel at peak physical and mental health.  That's my goal.  I think for the community, 2019's going to be all about these health initiatives and what the possibility could mean for your family and your business."

Brown hopes to see the City of Airdrie continue moving forward in the new year. 

"We want to continue to provide the highest level of services to our community and we want to make certain that we're doing it to the best of our ability, that we're listening and we're learning and we're always striving to be the very best organization going forward."

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