Red Deer Mayor Ken Johnston (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Over 350 meetings

Mayor Ken Johnston looks back on year of relationship building in Red Deer

Dec 21, 2022 | 2:15 PM

For Red Deer Mayor Ken Johnston, the past year has been focused on planting seeds for relationship building.

In his first year as mayor, he says he had 370 meetings with members of the public, businesses, interest groups and more since October 2021.

Mayor Johnston says his goal was to become an active partner in the city by reconnecting areas that became disconnected, especially following two pandemic years of minimized contact amongst the community.

“It was all about having gratitude for the freedom to be able to get together again. The freedom to be able to assemble, to do our community events, to do something as simple as going to your restaurant to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary, and all those things, let alone the emotional separation that COVID had brought us, the relational separation that challenged us,” he said.

The mayor says he placed many efforts to spread a message of belonging by bringing Red Deerians together on a culturally diverse level with various groups including Indigenous, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ communities through events and initiatives.

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Although the permanent shelter site and Red Deer Regional Hospital expansion projects were not completed by the timeline he had hoped for, Mayor Johnston said he is encouraged to see their progression moving forward due to the City’s relationship with the province.

In January 2022, the development permit for the temporary shelter at Cannery Row was extended for another two years to 2024 until a permanent shelter could be built. While the mayor says there is always a possibility of the temporary shelter needing a further extension, there is still hope that the permanent shelter project can be completed by that year.

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For the hospital, the Government of Alberta announced site details in November. The mayor added that a “public facing event”, similar to a town hall, is supposed to be held in the city by the government to provide more detail in the springtime. He also hopes to see a “bridging strategy” formulated by the province to ensure a smooth transition into the expanded hospital, a process he anticipates taking perhaps eight years.

READ: Hospital expansion projected for 2030 completion; province reveals site details

Onward looking to 2023, Mayor Johnston says the City has been working towards the creation of a Recovery Summit to be held in the spring, bringing together experts and survivors of addiction in one place to help build Red Deer as a recovery community.

READ: Mayor Ken Johnston pursues goal of Red Deer becoming leader in addictions recovery

In the economic sector, he says he hopes to see one or two major developments establish in the Capstone area next year, inspiring new ideas for the Club Café and Buffalo Hotel spaces in the downtown that will soon be demolished.

READ: Buffalo Hotel and Club Café to be demolished from Red Deer’s downtown

While there has been some debate over the lack of public consultation towards the decision, the mayor described the locations as being in such poor shape that personal protective equipment had to be worn inside due to the asbestos and other damages.

In the spring, he says the City will be reaching out to the public for thoughts on what to do with the space until a developer takes over, which he anticipates could be in five years.

Going into his second year as mayor, he says the one thing he learned the most was not only how much Red Deerians cared about the city, but the challenges of juggling local varying opinions to make the best decisions in office.

“I think when you come to terms with the impossibility of pleasing everyone, you actually can do a better job,” he said. “That is the reality of public life; it’s a moving target constantly. You’re dealing with as much information as you can get at the time that you have and history will judge you, usually 100 per cent accurate, but that’s all about hindsight. It’s making a decision with the best information that you can and the hope that you have that you’ve made the very best decision.”

“The vast majority of Red Deerians really care about the city. They’re invested in the city and many of us do so many unseen things every day to build the city. It would be my hope for 2023 that we continue that spirit of building the city, of being supportive of each other, be kind to each other, and be proud of where we live.”