Leduc city council ponders future infrastructure growth

Leduc city council

The city of Leduc administration wanted something city council couldn't give them at Monday night's meeting.

Administration presented council with a list of future infrastructure growth projects.  The hope was city council would whittle down the list, or at least rank the projects to be discussed when budget deliberations happen in the fall.  However, that task proved to be difficult with councilors expressing a variety of opinions and asking plenty of questions along the way.

Only one councilor seemed to take a firm stand against one of the items on the list.

"The letter that we have from Select Engineering Consultants, one of the sentences in it sums it up very, very nicely," Councilor Ryan Pollard noted.  "Based on the classification of ball played at the William F. Lede ball diamonds, lightning systems would not typically justify as required."

Seeing council struggle to prioritize the list may have prompted a suggestion by the mayor.

"When you take a look at this, even if we put this all in the budget it will still be debated, so we don't have to make a decision tonight," Bob Young advised.

Young also pointed out the city has also set aside $25 million so there would be no need for a tax increase if the city decided to move forward with most of the items on the list, based on current cost estimates.

In the end, council passed a motion to include all of the items on the list for discussion at budget time.