By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

Highlights from Monday’s City Council meeting

Jun 30, 2020 | 5:30 AM

Besides food trucks and pools, City Council discussed a number of topics at Monday’s meeting.

Council has asked administration to meet with the local Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter, to discuss where a crashed car with messages about not driving impaired could be set up. It is currently situated along Highway 43 near Ritchie Bros.

Two people from MADD suggested good places to go would include the entrances to ball diamonds and golf courses. They also mentioned that Grande Prairie has one of the highest impaired driving rates in Alberta.

Council also passed a number of changes for community group funding. That includes limiting the maximum allocation per group per year to $7,500, $5,000 for matching grants and $2,500 for cash grants under the new Community Improvement Grant. That grant’s budget has also been lowered to $25,000 from just over $45,000 after some discussion about having at $35,000.

Also, the Arts Development Fund will now have separate performing group and operation funding categories and a $5,000 maximum. Several organizations, the Street Performers Festival and Reel Shorts Film Festival among them, will now fall under this rather than the Community Group Funding one.

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The Arts Development Funding Budget will also go up $35,000 to $115,000. Groups already given money for 2020 that could not use it this year will be allowed to use it next year. Funding for some groups was also approved. Some of this came about because of the pandemic.

Council will also back a motion from Edmonton about having the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association lobby the province to build more affordable housing, along with more health and support services to help those with what the motion calls “complex needs.”

Grande Prairie has also seconded a resolution brought forward by Lethbridge to allow the continued use of municipal bonds as a way for communities to generate money.

Both these motions will be presented at a future AUMA convention.

City Council will next meet on July 13.