Fort McMurray Minute: Issue 120

Fort McMurray Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Fort McMurray politics

📅 This Week In Fort McMurray: 📅

• Administration is recommending against creating a municipally owned electricity utility, telling Council that buying the local distribution system would cost more than $350 million and is unlikely to lower rates for residents or businesses. The review, one of the items on the agenda when Council meets tomorrow at 5:00 pm, stems from a motion by Councillor Don Scott last December directing staff to investigate whether a municipal utility could reduce electricity costs. After consulting ATCO, the City of Red Deer, Suncor, and an independent energy consultant, Administration concluded that a municipal utility would demand specialized staffing and ongoing capital costs while exposing taxpayers to greater financial risk and losing the economies of scale of an established provider. Instead, staff recommend focusing on advocacy for electricity rate harmonization with the province, an effort Mayor Sandy Bowman and Council have pursued for two years. Pursuing the utility option any further would require roughly $300,000 for a consultant study taking 18 to 24 months.
  
  
• Also on tomorrow's meeting agenda, Council will consider adding a new $10-million road rehabilitation project to the 2026 capital budget. Administration says the Municipality's aging pavement network has deteriorated to the point where routine maintenance is no longer effective, and is proposing a mill and inlay program to rebuild the worst road segments. The same agenda includes a separate package of capital budget amendments totalling $1.25 million, which would add $250,000 to finish the Jerry Cooper outdoor ice rink and $1 million to complete pressure-reducing valve and water supply line work in the downtown and Abasand areas. The rink budget fell short partly because of construction cost increases since the project was first developed in 2021. 
  
  
• A proposed new procurement policy giving Indigenous-owned businesses greater access to municipal contracts will also go before Council tomorrow. The policy, developed with an Indigenous Procurement Working Group and the Northeastern Alberta Aboriginal Business Association over several years, would formalize verification measures and procurement options aimed at increasing the share of municipal purchasing awarded to Indigenous businesses. Council would also approve accompanying revisions to the municipality's general procurement policy to embed the new rules into standard purchasing practices. Administration anticipates the program will eventually require hiring an additional full-time employee to support it. The initiative follows a 2025 Council direction to implement a broader Indigenous procurement strategy.
  
  
• Council will be asked tomorrow to adopt a 10-year Community Safety and Social Well-Being Strategy and to direct Administration to begin carrying out its recommendations. The plan, partly funded by the federal Building Safer Communities Fund and developed with the Rural Development Network over the past year, sets out six priority areas including access to health care, housing and homelessness prevention, and rural infrastructure and safety. It draws on 3,466 public engagement responses gathered across Fort McMurray and the region's rural communities. The strategy does not carry its own budget. Its costs would instead be reflected in departmental budgets as individual activities are pursued. Council reviewed an earlier version through an advisory committee before this adoption vote.
  
  
• The Government of Alberta is committing $15 million to repair Highway 63, the main route in and out of Fort McMurray, following months of complaints about potholes and deteriorating road conditions. The funding is part of a $22.4-million increase to the Province's highway maintenance budget. Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen said the Province is also expediting contracts to repave 48 kilometers of Highway 63 southbound near Wandering River and 30 kilometers along Highways 63 and 881 in the Fort McMurray area. Mayor Sandy Bowman called the money a little overdue but welcome, and said he raised the highway's condition with Premier Danielle Smith the weekend before the announcement. The commitment follows a June effort in which residents, business owners, and contractors filled potholes along the highway themselves, frustrated that the work had not been done. 

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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