Opinion
Council’s Strategic Plan Misses The Mark
Opinion Editorial submitted by Chad Krahn
It took a full year, but we finally have a glimpse into where Mayor and Council want to take Red Deer. This week they released their Strategic Plan … and it’s underwhelming. The plan is heavy on buzzwords and light on a concrete vision of where Council wants the city to be in four years.
Let’s start with the “vision” statement Innovative Thinking, Strategic Results, Vibrant Community. These six words do not tell us anything about where Council wants to take the city or anything specific Council would like to achieve in four years. Where is the inspiring vision with big goals to propel our city toward
greatness and make us proud to be Red Deerians?
There is also a complete lack of anything specific to Red Deer; this document could easily be the strategic plan for Medicine Hat or Lacombe. Every community should want to thrive and be healthy and connected, but what will Council’s focus be to ensure Red Deer grows into the great city we know it can be?
The focus areas of A Thriving City, Community Health and Well-being and An Engaged and Connected City are all wonderful, but they are tough to measure.
Many of the goals that Council hopes to achieve are minimalist and are not stretching the capabilities or the imagination of Red Deerians. Council wants to have a “vibrant downtown” and a “strong, respectful, and collaborative relationships” with citizens. That’s nice, but the indicators are so weak that one more event downtown and the goal was achieved. If the population grows by one person, another goal is achieved. Many of the indicators focus on the feelings of Red Deerians, which are virtually impossible to measure. Data-driven results are a great goal, but how does Council expect to get data on our collective feelings? Without numbers and benchmarks, this becomes a plan that is impossible to fail but also exceedingly difficult to make progress toward any difficult goal.
One of the top issues for Red Deer is crime. This does get mentioned in a roundabout way under Community Health and Wellbeing as a Safe and Secure City. It also comes with some indicators:
feeling of safety
number of calls for service (urban encampments)
Reported crime statistics are within guidelines specified in the Annual Policing Plan
This seems passive for a huge issue. Feelings of safety are essential, but they are, by nature, hard to measure. My feelings of safety have a lot to do with how recently my garage was broken into. They also want to measure the number of calls for service, particularly around rough sleeper camps. Why not just measure the number of rough sleeper camps? Rather than specifying that crime statistics are within guidelines, where is the commitment to make sure our crime rate drops so Red Deer doesn’t appear on Canada’s most dangerous cities? What about committing to innovative ideas for our police officers to help get the crime rate down? Or even efforts to increase the number of RCMP members in the city. The Mayor has spoken several times about how community safety is a top priority, so one would have expected it to feature more prominently in the Strategic Plan.
The economy is another top issue in Red Deer, which is mentioned under Local Economy is Strong and Diverse. And there are some indicators:
Net gain of businesses in Red Deer
Business developer and local contractor satisfaction
Neither of these indicators speaks to the diversity of the economy. While a net gain is better than a net loss, it hardly represents an aspirational goal. Would council be satisfied if there was only a single more business in the city after four years? Where is a percent growth benchmark that the plan is striving to achieve? Where is the commitment to being a regional economic driver? What happened to Mayor Johnston’s push for hydrogen service hub development in Red Deer? Would that not be something that belongs in a Strategic Plan?
Red Deer’s biggest challenge is that it is a city that thinks like a small town. We are on the cusp of having the best of both worlds – a great community with a small-town feel. But I fear we won’t get there without a clear and distinct vision that will propel our city toward greatness. We can be so much more.
Chad Krahn is a former candidate for Red Deer City Council.
Business
You Are Not Eating Ze Bugs…
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Cricket Farm Axes Jobs
I remember back a few years ago, making my way down to the midway of the Calgary Stampede to check out all of the new flavorful wares.
The Midway hasn’t really offered much by way of new rides since I was a kid, not entirely sure I’d be interested in riding them, even if they did…
The Budweiser beer grounds get old, when a cold beer sets you back over $10.
Mini donuts have lost their luster…
But every year, there are new menu items that had given a reason to at least make the cost of admission worth giving this another shot.
Walking through the grounds, the wife and I noticed that one of the new Stampede Delicacies was pizza with bugs on it…
And I remember commenting to the wife that commercially made pizza has always had bugs in it…just nothing that they’d admit too for fear of being closed down by health regulations.
I mean…what’s next – boasting about mouse droppings in your soup?
But this bug thing has seemingly still managed to take off for reasons I cannot fathom. Are cow farts really impacting the planet that much?
It’d be hard to believe and harder to prove, even if this were true.
But then to read about some massive cricket farm in Eastern Canada, where cricket proteins were to be used in the mass production food items – chips, crackers, protein and energy bars and even flour – were soon to become a thing made me even more leery of processed foods.
Acheta Powder, by listing in ingredients…because this is the soft way to slip something onto the “may contain”, listings…which seems more innocuous than bugs or crickets…
But because my consumption of processed food items is low, were never much of a consideration and hunting for this on items I had no intention on purchasing anyways, seemed an awful waste of time.
The Eastern Canadian Cricket farm was built by Aspire Foods, for the tune of about $90 Million Bucks…$8.5 million provided by yup – you guessed it, Your Taxes, through federal grants.
Which, while is nothing in relation to the $40 Billion that has been extorted by the governments, out of your hard earned paycheque, to subsidize EV Batteries, with a 20 year ROI of ZERO…is still as big of a loss because…apparently, like the failure in trying to force people into expensive and unpractical EVs or turning plants into meat looking substitutes…
Mmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is also a Huge Failure.
Not enough people are eating Ze Bugs…which has turned out to shutter 2/3rds of the staffing in the workforce, in London, Ontario at the Aspire Cricket Farm.
Now…I’m all for innovation.
It’s what has created the device I’ve used to create this post and share it with all of you. I love some of the items that have leant to making my life easier and reduced efforts for tasks that offer little by way of satisfaction or payoff…
But with this being said…the market will always be the decider on what will or will not take off…and even with the bombardment of fear mongering around climate change and sustainability, bugs as a protein substitute are rapidly proving themselves out of market because…like me, you are not eating Ze Bugs!
Business
Sanctuary State Told To Cut Spending On Hotel Stays For Migrants As Costs Expected To Hit $1 Billion
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
A state commission is encouraging Massachusetts to cut costs on emergency shelter services for migrants and other families by spending less on expensive hotels.
The emergency shelter system in Massachusetts housing migrant families and others experiencing homelessness is expected to spend over $1 billion in fiscal year 2025, according to a state commission report investigating the matter. The report comes as Massachusetts, a sanctuary state that limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities, is continuing to experience financial hardship over the border crisis and an influx of migrants into their communities.
The draft report proposed spending less on the most expensive accommodations for migrants — which would include hotels and motels. Prior reports have found that housing migrants in hotels or motels in the state can be as costly as $300 per night.
“Since the EA shelter system reached capacity at 7,500 families last year, approximately 50% of families have been in hotels and motels across the state,” the report stated. “The Commission recommends limiting reliance on hotels and motels to best serve families and increase the financial and operational efficiency of the system, while recognizing that hotels and motels may be a last-resort option for surge capacity at times of rapid changes in demand.”
“Data suggests that hotels and motels are the most expensive type of shelter in the EA system,” the report concluded. It also noted that the state’s shelter caseload and system costs have skyrocketed to “unsustainable levels” since 2022.
The immigration crisis taking place under the Biden-Harris administration has hit Massachusetts particularly hard. Roughly 355,000 illegal migrants and other inadmissible foreign nationals live in the state, and approximately 50,000 have arrived since 2021, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
Democrat Gov. Maura Healey, in her efforts to clamp down on the state’s crisis, has publicly called on illegal immigrants to not go to Massachusetts, offered plane tickets for them to leave, and has asked residents to take in migrant families. The state has also experienced a rising number of deportation cases as illegal migrants continue to flock there.
Despite the growing pains with mass illegal immigration, the governor has remained steadfast in her opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for an immigration crackdown, and she confirmed that her state’s law enforcement would “absolutely not” help with mass deportation efforts. The entire state of Massachusetts is considered a sanctuary for illegal migrants for its laws limiting cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
The state legislature appropriated $639 million to the emergency assistance shelter system for fiscal year 2025, according to the report. However, expense projections are expected to hit $1.094 billion – leaving a shortfall of roughly $455 million for the fiscal year.
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