Council Report for May 3, 2010

Wednesday, April 21st – Reel Shorts Film Festival (Faces of Eve)

Thursday, April 22nd
- Earth Day Proclamation at the Montrose Cultural Centre. Mayor Logan presented the proclamation on behalf of the city and spoke about Environment Committee initiatives.
- Aquatera USA Review Committee
- Sierra Club and SPOC presented on renewable power and green jobs in Alberta.

Friday, April 23rd
- Council met with members of the Sierra Club to discuss their ideas around renewable power and green energy jobs. Encourage the public to look at their website at www.repoweralberta.ca.
- Opened a tender for the Montrose Cultural Centre security contract.

Wednesday, April 28th
- Council attended the flag raising ceremony for the CUPE Local Day of Mourning
- Met with Danielle Smith and her contingent from the Wildrose Alliance Party.
- Attended the GP Hospice Palliative Care Wine & Cheese

Thursday, April 29th – Attended the Chamber Business Showcase at the Crystal Centre. Many members of council also attended and the City of Grande Prairie had a number of booths set up. Kudos to everyone for their good work.

Saturday, May 1st – Participated with other members of council on the Rotary Greenathon. The kids did a wonderful job cleaning up the green spaces around the city. On that note, I wanted to remind everyone that it’s City Scrub week and we’re encouraging everyone to help make this city cleaner and greener by spending at least 20 minutes picking up trash around their businesses and homes.

Wapiti Corridor Planning Society
- Held 2 public stakeholder engagement meetings last week dealing with recreation groups: one for non-motorized trail users and the other for motorized trail users.
- The users identified areas just south of the city that they use. Most of the land in question is crown land, but some is not.
- They were also asked to identify issues they’ve encountered while using the land.
- At this point, we’re just collecting the data, not trying to come up with any solutions.
- There will be more at least a couple more opportunities for members of the public to get involved in the land use planning process.
- One of the most difficult challenges we’ll have is trying to engage the individual users that are not part of an organized club.
- There’ll be several more of these meetings coming up to have discussions with industries, leaseholder and other stakeholders.
- I’ll try to keep council up to date as the meetings occur.


Community Futures Board Meeting
- There’s an exciting opportunity for youth in Northern Alberta this summer.
- Nayec is the Northern Alberta Youth Entrepreneurship Camp which takes place from August 15-21.
- This year, it will take place at the Moose Lake Gospel Camp in Bonnyville, AB.
- NAYEC is a one-week business planning camp for youth ages 13 to 15 and designed to improve business, academic, and life skills through entrepreneurship.
- The camp creates an opportunity for regional youth to gain valuable, transferable entrepreneurial skills, such as creating business plans, while enjoying the traditional summer camp experience.
- Participants’ fees are covered by sponsors, so there is little or no cost to attend this camp.
- Youth must apply to be chosen to attend this camp. The deadline for applications is June 30th.
- More information is available by going to www.nayec.ca

GP Regional Tourism Association
- The Deh Cho Trvavel Connection officially launches on May 15th which is when visitors can pick their passports describing the entire trail.
- It’s approximately an 1,800km circuit that passes through cities, towns and campgrounds covering northern Alberta, BC and southern Northwest Territories.
- The road passes through Mile Zero on the Mackenzie Highway and Mile Zero on the Alaska Highway.
- The passport is part of a contest to encourage people to travel through the towns and cities along the way. Grande Prairie is one of 20 tourism centres where visitors can collect passport stamps.
- If you collect at least 4 from each province or territory, for a total of 12, you can send in your passport to be entered to win prizes in their Diamond in the Rough Contest.
- First prize is a genuine Polar Ice Diamond valued at over $7600.
- So on May 15th, pick up your passports at Visitor Information Desk at Centre 2000.