On EDGE | ANALYSIS Last Thursday, I visited one of the downtown malls to chat with a security guard – we’ll call him John – about the visible increase in security personnel throughout the city of late. John was happy to share his observations on the condition of anonymity, though he said he might have
The minor scuffle that broke out last week between Javaroma and the City over food truck regulations seems to have been diffused, with City Council set to keep things status quo. Instead of loosening restrictions on where food trucks can operate, as administration had suggested, the majority of councillors favoured reverting back to last year’s
By now, you’ve probably noticed the chalkboard-style Fat Fox signs on the side of the old Gold Range Diner. But with the café scheduled to open later next month, I’m sure you, like the rest of us, are wondering what’s shaping up behind the wooden blinds covering the windows. EDGE managed to get a sneak peak inside the
Last night, shortly after councillors congratulated one another for wrestling a proposed municipal tax increase down to zero, Mayor Mark Heyck gave a sobering critique of his colleagues’ work over the past week. “I’m fully supportive of the close scrutiny that council gives of the budget and I think it’s important that we all take
Coun. Julian Morse on slashing the splash park: “I had a hard time falling asleep last night. It wasn’t an easy decision.” After two days of intense budget cutting, city council has turned the previously proposed tax increase into a slight tax decrease. Property taxes were slated to go up by 2.87 percent according to the
After four weeks, three debates, hordes of snappy signs and a whole lot of hard work by the Yellowknife municipal candidates, here is your mayor and council: Mark Heyck Council: Rebecca Alty Adrian Bell Linda Bussey Niels Konge Julian Morse Shauna Morgan Steve Payne Rommel Silverio The most exciting story of the night appears to
Did someone say increased property taxes? On EDGE | Political Opinion Last December, I sat through night after night of achingly dull City Hall budget debates. As I struggled to keep my eyes open, council went line by line through dozens of densely annotated pages, discussing the merits of this or that expenditure and the
In answer to an accusation from his sole political opponent that he ‘isn’t even trying anymore,” Mayor Mark Heyck smiles wryly and says“I’ll leave it to voters to judge how hard I’ve been trying these past three years and the nine years I was on council previous to that.” Until recently, the 39-year-old incumbent with three council terms and
Teacher and long-time volunteer Beaton Mackenzie may have four unsuccessful election campaigns to his name, but he says his commitment to the community and willingness to listen makes him someone to vote for on Oct. 19. “I enjoy sitting down and having discussions, and … you can always do something better,” says the 61-year-old special
Marie-Soleil Lacoursiere, 33, oversees contract negotiations for Dominion Diamond Ekati Corp., managing a team that procures millions of dollars annually in goods and services for the mine. She has a degree in business administration, a graduate diploma in operations management and is working on a graduate degree in governance and entrepreneurship in northern and indigenous
Thom Jarvis, a business lender and sometime weekend radio host on MooseFM, is running on a purse-tightening, back-to-the basics platform with certain hints of past controversy about homelessness. “I’m very fiscally cautious,” says the 53-year-old who’s lived in Yellowknife for around 20 years in total (in the 1980s and again since 2005) and currently works
The local chartered accountant who on Friday announced his intention to run against Mark Heyck is pitching himself as the polar opposite of the mayor. If elected, John Himmelman, a 52-year-old accountant who’s been in Yellowknife for seven years, would sell the 50/50 lot, reassess the Canada Winter Games bid and drop the City’s lawsuit
Just when we were all expecting Mark Heyck to cruise back to the mayoral chair uncontested, a local chartered accountant filed his papers this morning. John Himmelman is a private accounting consultant who moved to Yellowknife in 2005. The 52-year-old* is a former GNWT employee, originally from Ontario, who also spent a year and a half in
Shauna Morgan, who announced she’s running for municipal politics yesterday, hopes to improve the way that the City’s public consultation functions. “People are excited about engaging, about coming out to consultation sessions… but I think that also requires some leadership to help facilitate discussions in a meaningful way, instead of everyone just tossing ideas out
Finding homes for the homeless and breathing new life into Yellowknife’s downtown are the key issues in the upcoming civic election for Julian Morse. “They go hand in hand,” said Morse, who is a resource officer with the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board.* “Without addressing homelessness and addictions and loitering, there isn’t much point