AUMA Convention Day One

I;m on my blackberry today from downtown Calgary for the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) conference. AUMA is basically the provincial association for Cities, Towns and Villages. At the conference municipalities bring forward resolutions on different issues that affect the way cities operate and often these resolutions ask the provincial government to take some kind of action by changing some piece of legislation or program.



GP has two resolutions we are bringing forward:



The first is asking the province to add a fee to cell phone bills that would help operate 911 services. You already pay this on landlines but more and more of the calls are actually coming in from cell phones. Add that to the fact that more people are cancelling their landlines and moving just to cells (as I have) and you get a situation where there are more calls and less money to pay for the service. The city of GP runs the 911 call center in our area so this has a direct impact on our city budget - we can't do without 911 so we pay for it. Our resolution is being combined with an almost exactly similar one from Edmonton.



The second resolution we are bringing forward is to ask the province to amend the election law and allow internet voting in the next municipal election. I've posted on this before. I'm looking forward to speaking to the conference and bringing this forward.