Spice Things Up For The Holidays

With the holidays upon us I thought I'd do a quick post this afternoon to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2009!

2008 has been a very busy year for the City of Grande Prairie and I think we'll see the same in 2009. Of course we're aware of the concerns out there about the economy but over all I believe that our region will enter '09 in at least as strong a position as any other city in the province, or country for that matter.

Exciting things are happening in our city; construction has started (finally) on the swimming pool / multiplex, the new Library/Art Gallery will open this spring and this winter our roads are benefiting from the extra $1.3m in snow removal budget passed last year.

I'm going to try to do a year end wrap up over the break so check back for that as the new year approaches.

In the mean time I had to share this little bit of municipal news from south of the border:

"ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — Slush has never smelled so spicy.

City crews in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny are using garlic salt to melt snow and ice on streets from Tuesday's storm. The salt was donated by Tone Brothers Inc., a top spice producer headquartered in Ankeny.

Public Works Administrator Al Olson said the company donated 18,000 pounds of garlic salt to use on its 400 miles of roads.
Olson doesn't have details, but he said the salt would have ended up in the landfill, so the company donated it. A telephone call Wednesday to Tone Brothers wasn't immediately returned.

Olson said the city mixed the garlic salt with regular road salt and it works fine. He said some road workers say it makes them hungry, but Olson doesn't recommend it to spice up lunch or dinner."

That town is going to smell great come spring - I see an upswing in business coming for the local Italian restaurants!

Merry Christmas!