Calgary Minute: Event Centre, Park Sale, and a Train Idea Chugs Along

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

This Week In Calgary:

• City Hall returns for just a single meeting this week after Council required about 33 hours across 4 days to complete last week's "Monday" meeting.
  
  
• That one single meeting will be a meeting of the Calgary Planning Commission on Thursday at 1:00 pm.
  
  
• We now have 22 candidates for Mayor and more than 100 candidates for Council officially running. Check out more info about them in our candidate database. Who are you supporting?

Last Week In Calgary:

• Council heard an update on and approved changes to the City's new Event Centre project, including a new project manager and an even higher budget. We're not sure which is more egregious: the ballooning budget itself or the gall of those on Council who called the revised deal a "huge win" for taxpayers, despite it including an extra $12.5 million of taxpayer money for construction, an extra $10 million for capital, and a new agreement to cover 50% of all future event costs.
  
  
• In a 9-5 vote, Councillors gave the green light to develop a northwest corner of Richmond Green Park. As part of the plan approved by Council, two little league ball diamonds will be removed and 5.5 acres of park space will be sold for future commercial and residential developments. With the money, the City plans to remediate adjacent City-owned land to theoretically increase the total amount of park land.
  
  
• A passenger rail train connecting Calgary’s airport with Banff is one step closer to reality after it was deemed that a downtown stop would be a necessity to the project. Officials believe that a rail train connecting both communities would be in the economic interest of both cities. Here at Common Sense Calgary, we're pretty skeptical that this entire project can be done for the promised $1 billion and, for some reason, we suspect it might end up costing more and delivering less than promised.

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