St. Albert is joining a number of mid-sized Alberta cities in a bid for more attention — and more funding — from the province.
City council voted to support a provincial grant application submitted by the Alberta Mid-Sized City Mayors Caucus (MCMC) to create a data-driven dashboard to showcase the financial benefits of cities like St. Albert. The MCMC, which includes St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron, is an advocacy group representing 24 urban municipalities across the province.
Earlier this month, the Town of Cochrane submitted an application on behalf of the MCMC to the province's community partnership grant program, hoping to receive up to $400,000 for the project.
In an interview, Heron said cities like St. Albert, Red Deer, and Leduc often deal with the same issues as Alberta's two largest cities, but don't receive the same recognition or attention from the provincial government.
“This grant application is going to help us get there,” Heron said. “Generally speaking, we feel like we are large urban centres with the same kind of issues as Edmonton (and) Calgary. We all operate transit, for the most part, we all have libraries in our cities, many of us have hospitals in our cities — very similar issues to the big cities, but with very little funding or attention from the province.”
“We're trying to elevate ourselves,” she said.
According to a briefing note prepared by MCMC and supplied to St. Albert city council, the project has been broken down into four phases. The first involves the creation of a fiscal sustainability model “that can be used to estimate the impact of various funding or expense scenarios,” and identify funding gaps in each participating municipality.
During the second phase, the briefing note says, the MCMC will use data from the previous phase to draft an economic impact report, as well as a series of case studies to work through various growth scenarios for some participating municipalities.
A “road ahead” report will be prepared in third phase, with the intention of identifying any regulatory, policy, or legislative changes that could be made to ensure stability and success for mid-sized municipalities.
The project's last deliverable, according to the briefing note, is the creation of a dashboard to track ongoing financial and legislative changes made in the member municipalities.
Speaking in favour of the motion, Coun. Sheena Hughes said she also felt mid-sized cities were overlooked in Alberta.
“I think mid-sized communities are not recognized where they should be,” Hughes said. “It's always just Edmonton, Calgary, and all the mid-sized (cities) tend to be overlooked as far as their needs and make do.”
“I think that there's power in numbers, and by putting us together we can get more attention and get the recognition and help that we need from the province when we need it.”
The motion to support the MCMC's grant application, which was put forward by Heron, passed unanimously.
