Happy Holidays Chestermere!
It’s only been about nine weeks since we were elected, but we have been hard at work during that time to make changes that were brought to our attention by you, our residents.
In addition to our holiday greeting, we’d like to provide a quick update on just a few of our major accomplishments since we were sworn in on October 22.
In our short time in office, we have:
- Hired an Interim Chief Administrative Officer.
- Terminated the Civic Recreation Centre project and started looking into alternatives to support recreation while prioritizing new school sites.
- Voted to repeal the Public Conduct and Civil Discourse Policy.
- Changed the speed limit on Chestermere Boulevard back to 80 km/h.
- Installed advance turn signals at the intersection of Chestermere Blvd. and Rainbow Road.
- Increased the speed limit threshold for the flashing speed limit signs to 5km/h over the speed limit.
- Initiated the process of fully dissolving the utility company into the City and updated the shareholder agreement to improve transparency to the public.
- Began the process to create a public due diligence report on all major City projects from the last 15 years.
- Began review of recreational storm pond use within comparative municipalities and asked administration to begin recording data from city storm ponds for a future report to Council.
- Initiated a review of current board and committee appointments and began recruitment.
- Represented Chestermere at the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) Conference and received positive feedback and support from the Ministers of Municipal Affairs, Infrastructure and Health.
- Hosted the 4th Annual Dirt to Door Development Event, and started a dialogue with industry developers to look at new opportunities to increase commercial developments.
- Directed Administration to look at East Acreages, North Acreages and Paradise Meadows, and provide feedback on development and land use options of each area and report back to Council before the end of January 2022.
We have also improved how we notify the public about upcoming Council meetings, and how we share the results of those meetings.
Full agendas and a summary of Council decisions will be shared on City social media channels before and after each meeting, and all Council member votes are now recorded to indicate if a vote was unanimous.
After official meeting minutes are approved, Council resolutions will also be shared on the City website at https://www.chestermere.ca/1171/Resolutions-of-Council.
We have many new initiatives well underway and hope to take a hard look at more projects in 2022, all while continuing to improve transparency to the public.
We have so much work to do, but our team is passionate, eager, and working hard to make positive changes for Chestermere.
As your City Council, we wish you the very best this holiday season and can’t wait to continue working on your behalf in 2022.
Sincerely,
Mayor Jeff Colvin | Deputy Mayor Mel Foat | Councillor Shannon Dean | Councillor Blaine Funk | Councillor Stephen Hanley | Councillor Sandy Johal-Watt | Councillor Ritesh Narayan