One of our favourite contributors here, Elke Blodgett has a unique hobby in that she has captured every sunset on Big Lake for many years. Last night she took this shot of the 'Equinox' sunset on the first official day of fall 2011. A stunning photograph that rivals any shown here. Thanks for sharing, Elke.



It's Time To Cut City Payroll In Next Budget

Hi Don:

Your item on Wednesday brings up a question, in particular where mention is made of three employees of the city in the Communications department. Just what functions do these individuals carry out?

1) If the above are used to promote St. Albert and attempt to lure commercial business to establish here, should this not be part of a function of working in conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce? As I see it one hears or sees very little of this taking place.

2) Does city council have the final word, that is in making any staffing adjustments, or is this the sole territory of administration, (Holtby and company).

3) Could council instruct Holtby to reduce the payroll by a set percentage, something that is done out there in the public sector. I can speak from experience with this example:

VIA Rail Canada in the spring of 1989 was informed that the subsidy of $750 million was to be cut to $300 million in the next fiscal year. The action by the VIA was to offer incentives to senior employees by way of going onto a pension, as well as a "golden handshake" or you could exercise your seniority and remain. When you take the figures given into consideration, over 90 percent that were given the offer, left.

As time has shown the VIA followed through and as you can see today is thriving rather well.

It would seem that a cut back in staffing levels here could be taken without any ill-effect on services. How many times do you go by a city work crew and usually see the major number of employees doing nothing? They stand and watch one or two actually working. I imagine this is also taking place in offices.

As it is, it just seems as though the city employees keep on growing with no concern expressed publicly by the council

George Proulx
St. Albert

SINC SAYS:

Ask any person you meet on the street George and most would agree with you that the city is badly overstaffed. Apparently it’s OK with council, since as you note, they never question the numbers. They need to begin tax relief by ordering a 10 percent across the board cut in payroll expense and force administration to tighten their belt. Enough is enough. If some services suffer, so be it.
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St. Albert

City Council

Starbucks

Coffee At

$ervu$ Place

Decision



_________________________________________________________________



Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat


Links To Other Stories In The News:

Simons: St. Albert dad fights public school division over Lord’s prayer - Edmonton Journal

B.C.’s central coast braces for flooding - CBC

NASA: Pieces of plunging satellite have settled on Earth - CNN

NHL: Banana throwing incident was ‘stupid and ignorant’ - CTV

Als complete sweep over Eskimos - Edmonton Sun
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The Things That People Send Us

One day in the future this kid will laugh about this . . .




Careful When

You're

Backing Up!



French Toast - Do You Really Know How To Make It?

While this takes a bit more time to make than the method most folks use to prepare french toast, they tell me it is delicious.


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Above: Sculptor Stewart Steinhauer with his latest creation. Below left, the stone being lowered into position. Below right, ‘Git Outta Town’ Crouse delivers unbelievable comment. Bottom, the big crowd admires the statue.

I headed down to the river bank yesterday to watch the proceedings as a replacement statue was re-installed on the north promenade at city hall. You remember those statues, don’t you? One was pushed over and broken by vandals. The ones that the majority of taxpayers thought council wasted money purchasing? There was a huge uproar, apparently gone unnoticed by this council, as all but one of them voted to replace something never wanted by most residents in the first place.

About 50 people showed up for the ceremony. The question arises, is that likely about the same number of locals who supported buying the statues? Then mayor, ‘Git Outta Town’ Crouse, addressed the small crowd and used the opportunity to get on a soap box about a failing society.

He did however have one thing to say that caught my attention and I am paraphrasing here, but it went something like this:

”My wife and I travelled the world and visited a lot of countries and cities in those countries. We didn’t go to those cities to check out the taxes, we went there to look at the architecture, the art and the culture.”

Huh? How's that again? What an awful thing to say to local residents. It’s almost funny if it wasn’t so damn insulting. Maybe the mayor should look at other city’s taxes. It’s painfully obvious that if he has in Alberta alone, he simply doesn’t care that we suffer the highest taxes in the province. Then he has the nerve to rub our noses in it?

Those comments will long be remembered and will go into our growing file of things to remember during the next election campaign.

Is the legacy being left by the current mayor, council and city manager, a long-to-be-remembered black period in the history of this community? Your opinions are welcome here folks.




St. Albert SUN Chapter To Meet On Monday

Alberta Seniors United Now Society St. Albert Chapter

COME OUT AND JOIN US FOR COFFEE - Meet like minded seniors. Learn what SUN is all about. Tell us about your concerns (members are asked to bring a guest).

Monday September 26, 2011 at 1:30 p.m.
St. Albert Legion
6 Tache Street
St. Albert, AB
Local Information Phone 780-460-7736
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St. Albert

City Council

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Coffee At

$ervu$ Place

Decision



_________________________________________________________________



Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat


Links To Other Stories In The News:

Hundreds of Stanley Cup riot charges expected - CBC

How to take good pictures with different cameras - CNN

Olson’s imminent death gives victim’s brother 'comfort' - CTV

Two killed, seven injured in Yellowknife plane crash - Edmonton Journal

Esks look to turn negative to positive - Edmonton Sun
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The Things That People Send Us

Not much of a sheep dog, is it?




What The

Heck Are

Those Things?



Stealing Food From A Pride Of Lions

All I can say is these guys must have brass balls to be doing this . . .


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Playing Tomorrow Night At LB’s Pub

Mayor Nolan Crouse and St. Albert City Council will honour the architect of the Hemingway Centre. Peter Hemingway was an award-winning architect, with the Muttart Conservatory and the Coronation Pool in Edmonton among some of his other notable works.
 
The decision to name the former RCMP building after Hemingway was made by a City Council motion on December 21, 2009.
 
A brief presentation will be held at the Hemingway Centre, 25 Sir Winston Churchill Avenue, on Friday September 23 at 11:00 a.m.

Mayor Crouse will make a presentation to Hemingway’s family members who are travelling to St. Albert for the event.
___________________________________________________________________

St. Albert

City Council

Starbucks

Coffee At

$ervu$ Place

Decision



_________________________________________________________________



Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat


Links To Other Stories In The News:

70 Vancouver riot suspects have surrendered to police - CBC

Tropical storm Ophelia forecast to slowly weaken - CNN

Confusion leads to man bringing guns on Air Canada flight - CTV

Beer being offered as incentive for Calgary home purchase - Edmonton Journal

Global warming is hot - Edmonton Sun
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The Things That People Send Us

Where do people find this stuff?




Man Can

That Rabbit

Ever Jump!



Kangaroo Invades Golf Club

This one is good for a smile today . . .


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Playing Tomorrow Night At LB’s Pub

Don:

"I think it is important these points are discussed, as no one seems to have brought them up.”

So begins a message from “My Little Birdie” (MLB) who has some points well worth considering regarding the firing of Larry Horncastle and the likely people behind the plot to get him out of city hall.

MLB notes, Jennifer Jennax and Bill Holtby were at the SAEDAC meeting this past week to discuss the situation of Larry Horncastle's dismissal and future plans for the Business and Tourism Development department.

The expected platitudes of Larry having done a great job etc. were uttered, no surprise given the reaction to his unceremonious turfing a few weeks back.

Our intrepid correspondent also reports, “Jennifer disavowed that there was any "new direction"; the fact is, any such direction has to come from council and not administration.”

She said the replacement for Horncastle would have to, "have a local, regional and national presence and be able to work with the business community". When questioned about this, that in the view of most SAEDAC members it described Horncastle's abilities to a "T", she also stated that they would be "looking for someone who would be able to work collaboratively with other internal city departments". Again, describing Horncastle’s credentials adequately.

Although not stated directly, it was clear says MLB, this was an issue of differences between the city planning department, and in particular, very likely Curtis Cundy and Horncastle.  Most people in the know in this city have been aware of this conflict for some time.

MLB says, “What was clear, and this is the most important point, is that senior administration will continue to support in any way possible a residential development strategy, rather then looking towards light industrial and commercial assessments to offset residential increases.

This was also clear when administration was able to alter the Land Use study that Horncastle had presented and get their allies on council to alter it so that first of all less land will be allocated towards light industrial and commercial use, but even more important, that study indicated that designated lands needed to be contiguous, where as the direction from council was to administration to find 300 acres, even if they were non-contiguous.”

Further, “It's clear we will continue to lose developments like Costco and AGLC, both who tried to come or stay in St. Albert, but due to either insufficient contiguous lands being available or the frustration of dealing with a recalcitrant and business unfriendly planning department, businesses are either leaving or won't come. The jury is still out whether we can get Lowes to locate here'.”

MLB adds, "Don, the internal conflict, and especially city planning's direction (don't forget they were the drivers behind Smart Growth), does not bode well for a balancing of taxation in this city at all."

All of which brings up the obvious question, was the right man fired?

The short answer is likely no. Should it have been city manager Bill Holtby given his walking papers? Many would say yes and the sooner the better for the long term health of this community.

Another indicator of Holtby’s influence on this city will be the release of garbage collection costs in October. Administration has steadfastly refused to release those costs for June, July and August when requested by this site as well as told council said costs will not be released until Holtby and crew see fit to release them, that being October. If Holtby’s finance officer cannot produce results for the previous month by the middle of the month following, that person is inept, pure and simple. Those results should have been available beginning July 15 of this year.

If garbage collection costs are far above the former system, which in most resident's opinions was not broken before administration ‘fixed it’, it is but one more death knell for Bill Holtby. That should become the catalyst that prods council to rid ourselves of his policies, cost overruns like Riel Park and $ervu$ Place along with ever rising taxation.

The only problem we can see is that put in plain English, council doesn’t have the balls to do the right thing. Until they do, we will continue to be directed down the wrong path and face steadily increasing taxation.

At least that's the way we see it. How about it gentle readers? What's your opinion?

City Holds Ceremony To Replace Unwanted Statue

I received a media notice yesterday afternoon from the city of St. Albert inviting SAP to attend the exchange and placement ceremony between the city and artist Stewart Steinhauer of the two sculptures entitled StarWoman tomorrow (Thursday, September 22) at 1:30 p.m.

What the hell? Wasn’t it just at the Tuesday September 6 council meeting that council voted to replace the statue? I searched the Gazette and sure enough, I was right. Read the story here.

That says to me that one of two things happened. Either the sculptor can produce such a statue in two weeks, or council made the decision, likely in-camera as not a word was ever mentioned, months ago.

This should raise a huge red flag with taxpayers. Apparently council makes decisions and proceeds with arrangements to do things without ever discussing it in public and then simply rubber-stamps it by formal motion when it is too late for public input on such decisions.

Council forgets the huge public uproar when they bought the statues, a move opposed by more than those who wanted them. Once again taxpayers have been flipped the bird by council and administration.

And speaking of media notices and press releases, of which we average about one a week, why does the city need to employ three people to handle communications? There’s Maya Pungur-Buick, Director, Marci Ng, Communications Advisor and Pamela Hafey, Communications Advisor in the Corporate Communications and Marketing department. And those are just three that I know of folks. How many more are employed within the department is anyone's guess.

One more example of why city payroll has almost doubled while the population increase was in single digits over the past 10 years. Had enough yet folks?
___________________________________________________________________

St. Albert

City Council

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$ervu$ Place

Decision



_________________________________________________________________



Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat


Links To Other Stories In The News:

Hopley considered high risk sex offender: documents - CBC

35 bodies found in Mexican roadway during rush hour - CNN

Winnipeg Jets mark NHL return with 6-1 win - CTV

Much of Canada in path of falling space junk due Friday - Edmonton Journal

Predators among us - Edmonton Sun
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The Things That People Send Us

Did the cashier think about that line?




Uh Oh,

Somebody Turned

Out The Lights



Tim Conway On Johnny Carson

Old time comedy at its very best. Enjoy with thanks to SAP reader Kelly Boyd in Entwistle, AB. for digging up the video.


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Playing Tomorrow Night At LB’s Pub

This weeks songwriter is Jess Lee

Adopts American Elm

among official flora

The City of St. Albert has designated the area known as the White Spruce Forest a Municipal Historic Resource, preserving and enhancing the environmental and cultural sustainability of its natural assets.

The White Spruce Forest covers over six hectares and is located near the Timberlea subdivision, located off of Ray Gibbon Drive along the Red Willow Trail corridor.

“Forests are fundamental to our culture, economy, history and our future, and the White Spruce Forest area is one of St. Albert’s most valuable natural resources,” said Mayor Nolan Crouse. “The week of September 18 to 24 is National Forest Week and by designating the area a municipal historic resource, the City is ensuring that the connection between forests and people is protected, enhanced and sustained for future generations.”

The designation falls under the Historical Resources Act that allows the City to protect any natural or man-made resource that is important for its historic, archaeological, cultural, scientific or natural interest by naming it a municipal historic resource.

The American Elm was also adopted as the official deciduous tree of the City of St. Albert following a recommendation from the Society of Friends for the St. Albert Public Gardens.

The Scots Pine, the Highbush Cranberry and the Petunia were earlier adopted as the floral symbols of the City of St. Albert. The naming of the official deciduous tree completes that work and helps ongoing initiatives to mark the 150th anniversary of St. Albert, enhancing its reputation as a botanical arts city.

The City of St. Albert is dedicated to environmental protection and sustainability. St. Albert has some of the highest proportions of green space with the Red Willow Park system along the river valley connecting people and neighbourhoods.


A Mother’s Plea For Support In Martin Case

Editor:

My little girl, Samantha Lauren Martin, is subject of a Public Fatality Inquiry. Samantha was born on June 4, 1993 and passed on December 3, 2006. “Special Chambers” are arranged for Wednesday, September 21st. The purpose of the sitting is to determine whether Samantha’s case is considered important and unique enough to be awarded government funding for professional counsel within the Fatality Inquiry. In essence, Samantha Martin is representative of all children whose lives have been lost under Ministry Direction.
 
Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench Law Courts, 1A Sir Winston Churchill Square, Edmonton, AB T5J 0R2. Wednesday, September 21st at 2:00 pm. The room number is unknown until day of session, but can be located on the Public Boards upon entry at security under "MARTIN, Samantha."
 
Velvet Martin
St. Albert

SINC SAYS:

Good luck with the results of the hearing Velvet. Your struggle has been a long, lonely road and we wish you well.
___________________________________________________________________

St. Albert

City Council

Starbucks

Coffee At

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Decision



_________________________________________________________________



Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat


Links To Other Stories In The News:

Air Canada contract talks break down - CBC

7 victims killed in crash at Nevada air race identified - CNN

Gov’t would force end to Air Canada strike: Raitt - CTV

Katz wants deal by Halloween - Edmonton Journal

Armed woman involved in police standoff - Edmonton Sun
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The Things That People Send Us

Does the local Walmart have one of these?




Not Sure

How He

Does This But,

He's Good



Where’s The Manager?

Some ladies have a special way of getting your attention.


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Don Thomas of the city sent along this shot of Highbush Cranberries taken on River Lot 56.


___________________________________________________________________

St. Albert

City Council

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Coffee At

$ervu$ Place

Decision



_________________________________________________________________



Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat


Links To Other Stories In The News:

Bloc regroups ahead of leadership race - CBC

Sex strike brings peace to Filipino village - CNN

Farmers flee as world’s deadliest volcano rumbles - CTV

‘Mar is too far ahead,’ expert says - Edmonton Journal

Wildrose offers home to those left behind by vote - Edmonton Sun
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The Things That People Send Us

I guess that works too . . .




We've Run This

One Before,

But It Still

Makes You Smile



Radio Controlled Round-Up

Sometimes it’s hard to predict how cows think. Or do they?


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Playing Tomorrow Night At LB’s Pub


September 20

Big Hank Lionhart (Vocals)

Duane (Wink) Smith (Bass)

Frank Tack (guitar and vocals) and

Paul Finn (Guitar)

Big Hank Lionhart - Started his musical career in Edmonton in 1965 while still in high school. After graduation Hank moved to Seattle Washington to attend art college and formed a band The Clouds in Seattle. Then he returned to Edmonton and formed a band with the late Darrell Kittlitz and they toured across the country doing cabaret's and clubs. The group was called Coloured Rain. In 1974 after a year and a half on the road, Hank returned to Edmonton and joined Hot Cottage and played with them until 1978, then moved to Victoria forming Uncle Wiggly's Hot Shoes Blues Band who were signed to RCA records and recorded two albums. They opened for the likes of Muddy Waters, Joe Cocker, George Thorogood, James Cotton, John Mayall, the Neville Brothers, Koko Taylor, Queen Ida and Paul Butterfield to name a few and the band still do a reunion tour each year. After this band folded in 1983 Hank formed the Toasters and Kingpins in Vancouver with some ex members of Powder Blues. He then moved back to Edmonton in 2008 after 33 years on the Coast and Hank hooked up with old friends from Stettler and all members of Tacoy Ryde to form A Fist Full of Blues and are now playing after the release of their second CD, Bluesville. Always a pleasure to have the cagey vet in the house and Hanks diligence to keep the scene live has been a major part of all of our success. Always a class act.

Duane - is an accomplished musician, songwriter, recording artist and is a founding member of Tacoy Ryde. He has been playing for over 40 years and several of his compositions have received national exposure. Duane has performed with an impressive list of artists including the late, great Big Miller, Morgan Davis, Lester Quitzau, Eddie Patterson and the late great Gaye Delorme. Lately he can be found holding down the bottom end with Big Hank and a Fist Full of Blues.

Paul - is a respected blues musician who worked diligently in Calgary promoting the blues through his playing and hosting of the renowned King Edward blues jam for years. He has become a very regular face at the Moosehead Tuesday open stage. Also the called upon player when the bigger blues names hit town in need of local backup players. Recently sat in with The Rusty Reed Band. His blues guitar is a true to heart blues style with a really cool tone in his sound. Paul is first and foremost a very respected bass player but tonight he will come out as our frontman guitarist joining friend Hank and Wink.

Frank - Is a late add-on who is in town visiting for a couple of weeks. Frank had joined us back in 2005 at the Blind Pig for a set and I was so impressed I asked him to let me know when he was going to be in town again so we could show him off on stage. To my surprise he showed up to strut his stuff at our last show and I invited him to join us this week. Frank is a blues guitarist and vocalist from Vancouver. Dreamy melodic blues guitar progressions and a cool raspy blues voice.
 
Ammar’s Moosehead Tuesday Open Stage
Every Tuesday night from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.

Hosted by Mark Ammar
Moosehead Beer Specials
Sponsored by Moosehead Beer

Cynthia writes, Miss Kitty was brought here by the yard dog as a starving stray. Of course we took her in and brought her back to health, but she always seemed to be saying, "See I do not take up much space".


___________________________________________________________________

St. Albert

City Council

Starbucks

Coffee At

$ervu$ Place

Decision



_________________________________________________________________



Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat


Links To Other Stories In The News:

Alberta Tories face second leadership vote - CBC

Kara Kennedy dies of heart attack - CNN

U.S. tax evasion crackdown unfair to Canadians - CTV

Although tot returned home safe, question linger - Edmonton Journal

Plane crashes at West Virginia air show - Edmonton Sun
__________________________________________________________________

The Things That People Send Us

We've all got our problems . . .




What The

Heck Was

That Thing?



The Beach Blanket Trick

Makes you wonder just how he does this . . .


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