Leslie’s council update - 13 April 2009

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a super Easter weekend, and survived the shock of seeing a snowstorm when you opened your curtains this morning. 

EVENING COUNCIL MEETING

In response to comments from some people over the past year about the difficulty of getting to council meetings, council decided to schedule three evening meetings this year.  This is an attempt to see if evening meetings would be easier for people who would like to attend.

As you probably already know from the Crag, the first of these evening council meetings is tomorrow, April 14, starting at 7 pm.  If you're thinking of running in the next election, or if you want to know how council does business, or if you have a question related to the day's agenda that you'd like to ask in person, I hope you'll attend!

MID-TERM REPORT

I've written a brief mid-term report card, comparing what has been happening with what I promised to support during the election.  You can find the mid-term report on my council blog at www.lataylor.com/blog and the original campaign page at www.lataylor.com/campaign.htm   I welcome your comments!

WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE BANFF HOUSING CORPORATION?

Dave Gould of Certus Strategies is the facilitator working with council, the BHC, the BHC homeowners, and the community at large.  Dave met with the homeowners on March 25 to get their input into the process, and will be meeting with council members and staff on April 14 to set up the next steps.

WHAT'S COMING TO COUNCIL ON APRIL 14?

It's a pretty short council agenda, so if you decide to come to the meeting, you won't need to worry about being there all night!

The key items for decision relate to parking. 

Council is being asked to confirm that they want to go ahead with surface parking on the Beaver Street lot bought for that purpose.  I'm very pleased to see that staff is proposing to try out a permeable pavement for the lot -- this will help keep surrounding trees and underlying soil more healthy.

Staff is cautioning council that developing this lot as surface parking could include some costs that would not be recoverable if the town then decided to build a parkade on this and its neighbouring lots.  As you know, I don't support this parkade (although I realize that some of you hold the opposite point of view), but some council members wish to revisit this idea.  In any event, the approximately $9 million that such a building would cost is not in the 13-year capital budget at present, so this discussion may be a short one.

There is also a suggestion for an ongoing parking occupancy monitoring program, to give the town reliable information on which to base parking management decisions.  I think this could be a useful program, as it would also help us track the success of car-free initiatives such as public transit, way-finding, etc.

As well, the council is being asked to consider whether to continue the parking on the west side of Bow Avenue that was allowed during the downtown reconstruction work, or whether to discontinue parking on that side of the avenue.  I know several of you felt quite strongly in the past that this side of Bow should not be used for parking -- I welcome your comments on this issue.