A few reasons why Molly Bannister Extension is needed, please help.

Guy Pelletier Regional Vice-President of Melcor Developments, at an information session held at the Bower Community Centre stated that if we remove the right of way now then the city would not be able to build the bridge, “When they need it”.

Melcor understands that the city will need the Molly Bannister Extension in the future but they want to make money. The kind of money, that 50 more houses backing onto Piper Creek, would bring.

Melcor is a business and that is understandable, but the city works for the people, the tax payers too. The Molly Bannister Extension has been polled, discussed, analyzed, studied, for decades and the majority of Red Deer residents have always supported it.

Granted there are a few who oppose it, and they have been vocal about it. Now we have big money involved so now there is a sense of urgency about it.

Let us talk about the trail. The trail is actually in the field on the west side of the creek. That would mean they would actually have to tear down trees to put the trail along the creek to go under the bridge. The trail is in the field across from this quarter. The trail would cross the road requiring a crosswalk with flashing lights.

So the option is have hikers, bikers and skaters wait 6 seconds for the flashing lights to come on or have thousands of drivers drive and extra 6 minutes every day.

Air pollution kills 4 million people every year. We encourage walking, transit etc. Now we want thousands of people to drive 6 more minutes every day so a few people don’t have to use a crosswalk.

The developer says removing the right of way will be more park space but in the next breath talks about replacing it with 50 houses backing onto Piper Creek. What these houses won’t be accessed by a road?

In Sunnybrook we have Selkirk Boulevard running along the woods. Deer cross it every day. Traffic slows down and stops for the animals. Even with all the traffic using as a short cut to avoid the 32 Street and 40 Avenue intersection.

If you remove the Molly Bannister Extension, you will most likely tie onto Selkirk Blvd at Springfield’s 3 way stop. Springfield is narrow and has a school but it has direct access to 32 Street. Selkirk is the most likely route as history shows.

We are talking about a 50 year old neighbourhood which was on the top neighbourhood list in Macleans magazine years ago. Now it has sidewalks which need to be weeded because the city cannot afford to maintain.

If you remove the Molly Bannister Extension, you will widen 32 Street to 6 lanes. Traffic will increase from 23,500 cars per day to over 40,000 when the population increases to 188,000. You are spending 3 million dollars repairing a shifted foundation wall on 32 St. near 47 Ave now at 4 lanes. How much will it cost to expand it to six lanes through Kin Canyon, Mountview school’s playground, etc.

You have mentioned a traffic circle at 40 Ave. and 19 St. at possibly 29-50 million dollars? A pedestrian bridge over 19 Street?

If you remove Molly Bannister Extension, what other unintended consequences will there be? Thousands upon thousands of vehicles travelling those 4 extra kilometres every day? For many, many years and decades? Isolating the animals in this wall less sanctuary, unable to roam?

Removing the Molly Bannister Extension is the first step. You know, as history shows, that 80% of the lots will request relaxations. Future traffic may require widening Selkirk Blvd, possibly hooking onto 32 Street at Spruce Drive.

Selective environmental concerns, affects us all, at one time or another. Years ago I would have been happy to remove the road alignment, but I changed with time. The traffic, death rate of animals crossing 32 Street, the noise, the alienation, the effects on seniors and children trying to cross 32 St. The homeless people leaving trash, needles, and furniture and invading our yards and stealing.

What will happen in the future, I do not know, you do not know, so why handicap future councils, future residents and future growth, when you don’t have to.

I will always remember Brian Mulrooney saying to John Turner; “No sir, you had an option, you could have said no.”

The city laid out 2 options but there are other options. You could just say no.

Unfortunately, the impression is that there are councillors who are so set in their ways, determined to remove the Molly Bannister Extension, that facts, reality, empathy, and options will have no effect.

So my question is, given that the majority of Red Deer residents as shown in the largest number of responses the city had received, support the Molly Banister Extension, will council represent the majority or represent the select few?

Thank you.

Garfield Marks

Follow Author

The city is growing? The population isn’t, so is it growing?

Garfield Marks / 2 years ago

Dear Council; Reinstate the Arterial Road connection from 22 St. & 40 Ave. to Molly Banister

Opinion / 2 years ago

Molly Banister extension is before council again on Monday for the umpteenth time. Exhausting.

Daily Caller

Trump Moves To Reverse Biden’s Green New Deal Agenda — With A Special Focus On Wind

Published on January 22, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Shares of big Danish offshore wind developer Orsted dropped by 17% Monday, the same day President Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 47^th president of the United States. The two events are not merely coincidental with one another.

To be sure, Orsted’s loss of market cap was caused by several factors, including both the general slowing of the offshore wind business, and Orsted’s own announcement that it will incur a $1.69 billion impairment charge related to its Sunrise Wind project off the coast of New York. Company CEO Mads Nipper attributed the charge to delays and cost increases and said the project completion date is now delayed to the second half of 2027.

But there can be little doubt that the raft of energy-related executive orders signed by Trump also contributed to the drop in Orsted’s stock price. As part of a Day 1 agenda consisting of a reported 196 executive orders, the new president took dead aim at reversing the Biden Green New Deal agenda in general, with a special focus on wind power projects on federal lands and waters.

In addition to general orders declaring a national energy emergency and pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords (for a second time), Trump signed a separate order titled, “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects.” That long-winded title (pardon the pun) is quite descriptive of what the order is designed to accomplish.

Section 1 of this order withdraws “from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS) as defined in section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. 1331.” Somewhat ironically, this is the same OCSLA cited in early January by former President Joe Biden when he set 625 million acres of federal offshore waters off limits to oil and gas leasing and drilling into perpetuity.

As with Biden’s LNG permitting pause, the fourth paragraph of Section 1 in Trump’s order states that “Nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.” However, the same paragraph goes on to subject those existing leases to review by the secretary of the Interior, who is charged with conducting “a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.”

Observant readers will know that the parameters of this order as it relates to offshore wind are essentially the same as a proposal I suggested in a previous piece here on Jan. 1. So, obviously, it receives the Blackmon Seal of Approval.

But we should also note that Trump goes even further, extending this freeze to onshore wind projects as well. While the rationale for the freeze in offshore leasing and permitting cites factors unique to the offshore like harm to marine mammals, ocean currents and the marine fishing industry, the rationale supporting the onshore freeze cites “environmental impact and cost to surrounding communities of defunct and idle windmills and deliver a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, with their findings and recommended authorities to require the removal of such windmills.”

This gets at concerns long held by me and many others that neither the federal government nor any state government has seen fit to require the proper, complete tear down and safe disposal of these massive wind turbines, blades, towers and foundations once they outlive their useful lives. In most jurisdictions, wind operators are free to just abandon the projects and leave the equipment to dilapidate and rot.

The dirty secret of the wind industry, whether onshore or offshore, is that it is not sustainable without consistent new injections of more and more subsidies, along with the tacit refusal by governments to properly regulate its operations. Trump and his team understand this reality and should be applauded for taking real action to address it.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

illegal immigration

Trump directs feds to target cartels that threaten homeland security

Published on January 22, 2025

Todayville

ICE agents remove Mexican drug kingpin and leader of the Arriola Marquez Cartel, Oscar Arturo Arriola Marquez, from Texas to Mexico. US Immigration & Customs Enforcement

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

President Donald Trump is directing federal agencies to target Mexican cartels and other foreign groups that are a threat to American citizens and national security.

Trump’s executive order designates Mexican cartels, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, Salvadoran La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and specially designated global terrorists (SDGTs) under the U.S. Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“International cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime, with activities encompassing convergence between themselves and a range of extra-hemispheric actors, from designated foreign-terror organizations to antagonistic foreign governments; complex adaptive systems, characteristic of entities engaged in insurgency and asymmetric warfare; an infiltration into foreign governments across the Western Hemisphere,” the order states.

“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” Trump’s order states. “They functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States. In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society.”

TdA and MS13 gang members also pose similar threats, engaging in “campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” presenting “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

In response, Trump said, “I hereby declare a national emergency, under IEEPA, to deal with those threats.

“It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures” to protect Americans and the territorial integrity of the U.S.

He directed the secretary of State, secretary of the Treasury, attorney general, secretary of Homeland Security, and director of National Intelligence to take all appropriate action to implement his order.

He also instructed them to “make operational preparations regarding the implementation of any decision I make to invoke the Alien Enemies Act … in relation to the existence of any qualifying invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States by a qualifying actor, and to prepare such facilities as necessary to expedite the removal of those who may be designated under this order.”

Trump’s order comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and 21 Republican attorneys general for years called on the Biden administration to do so.

In September 2022, Abbott designated Mexican cartels as FTOs, issuing an executive order designating the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as foreign terrorist organizations,” The Center Square reported. He twice asked former President Joe Biden to do so and received no response.

Roughly one year ago, a coalition of 21 Republican attorneys general led by Virginia AG Jason Miyares also made the same request, argued an FTO designation was imperative because cartels are “assassinating rivals and government officials, ambushing, and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government,” The Center Square reported. “This dangerous terrorist activity occurring at our border will not abate unless we escalate our response.”

They also received no response – until Jan. 20, 2025.

The Center Square first reported on cartels using asymmetrical and nontraditional warfare targeting Americans as a reason for Texas to declare an invasion in 2022. No official state declaration was issued and the Texas AG’s office refused to issue a legal opinion on the matter despite numerous requests to do so. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was the only one to declare an invasion before a state legislature and 55 Texas counties declared an invasion, The Center Square exclusively reported.

On Trump’s first day in office, he declared an invasion at the southern border, the first president in modern history to do so.