At Tuesday's (July 5) City Council meeting, the Council gave official feedback on proposed electoral boundary changes that will impact Airdrie and the surrounding area.

Due to population growth, Airdrie will most likely be divided into two electoral divisions. Under the current proposal from the Alberta Electoral Boundary Commission (AEBC), most of Airdrie would remain as one riding, while a portion of the city north of Yankee Valley Boulevard and West of 8th Street would be lumped in with Cochrane and parts of rural Rocky View to form an Airdrie-Cochrane riding.

There are some concerns about the proposal, chiefly that a representative from the Airdrie-Cochrane riding would have difficulties representing an area that included a substantial rural area, a part of an urban center and another large growing municipality.

With that in mind, Council was presented with some options to suggest to the AEBC. Besides simply approving their proposed changes, Council saw plans that would create an East-West divide using the QEII as a boundary. There was also a plan that would create a North-South split using Yankee Valley Boulevard as a boundary. A final option was to divide Airdrie into parts of three ridings.

The majoriyty of Council was in favour of an East-West split. Only Councillor Kelly Hegg voiced his support for a North-South split. Hegg was also apprehensive about terming the change a "split"

"Any time I see it being split in any way, that worries me a little bit," said Hegg. "I understand and I support having two voices in the legislature if at all possible."

Speaking with Discover Airdrie later, Mayor Peter Brown voiced the same concern.

"Airdrie's one and there really isn't that East side, West side thing any more. We have a lot of employment opportunities on the East side, we've got great homes over there, we've got great commercial districts over there. It's a one community."

Ultimately, Mayor Brown and the rest of Council saw the benefits in having two representatives for our growing city.

"I think that it really will help us when it come to advocating for things like a 40th Avenue overpass or a potential overpass a little bit further north of the community."

Part of the process of giving the feedback was seeking the opinions of Airdrie's neighbours that are also impacted by the change, namely Cochrane, Chestermere and Rocky View County.

"Probably the thing that I liked the most about the process was that we engaged our MLA, we engaged our neighbours that were impacted by the initial rollout of what was being recommended, and all were in agreement with what Council eventually approved," said Mayor Brown.

The Council unanimously endorsed the proposal that would see Airdrie's electoral boundaries split East-West, with Highway 2 used as the geographic boundary.

 

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