Edmonton Headlines: Thursday, April 20, 2017

You know what, we haven’t started off a Headlines post with school board stories in a while, so let’s change it up today.

The Edmonton Catholic School District is asking for mandatory vaccinations for all students. This comes, of course, because too many people listened to the Jenny McCarthys and Robert DeNiros of the world with their bogus challenges of the safety of vaccines. Fact check: they are literally one of the reasons we don’t all die by age 40 anymore. Schools make a lot of sense as a checkpoint for something like this, since a lot of students will be exposed to the various diseases we very recently didn’t have to worry about thanks to parents who trust everything they read on the Internet.

One reason we’ve been talking a lot about school boards the last couple of months has been the increasing calls to de-fund private schools and the consideration of combining public and Catholic schools into one publicly-funded system. A new poll is out that backs the call to keep public education dollars in public schools.

Around the city

Edmonton is going to be looking at new rules for pawn shops. The rules will examine what kind of notice a business district should receive when a pawn shop plans to open, if clusters of pawn shops in one neighbourhood should be reduced or banned and if the stores should be held to higher design standards. City staff will also try to dig into whether or not pawn shops bring crime or other negative effects into a neighbourhood.

As work (probably) finally moves ahead at the old Charles Camsell Indian Hospital, there are questions about whether or not unmarked graves are going to be found, and if that work should take some precedence.

A handful of Edmonton Police officers have been cleared in the in-custody death of a man arrested for trespassing at the City Centre Mall.

Could this be the last year for Edmonton’s horror and genre film gathering, Dedfest? It might be, and the festival’s organizer is saying the way arts are funded in Edmonton is playing a role in its potential demise.

Green news

It might be time to do some renovations, and get yourself some money back for being green.

Another kind of green (it is 420 after all) is going to require new rules for city businesses. And a lot of people are eager to see rules start to come together for legal marijuana sales.

The U of A recently published a series of stories looking at issues that we’ll be hearing about, as plans to legalize roll out over the next two years.

Not a pot to piss in

Jumping out to me in this story on the Oilers’ pee problems is a telling number related to reduced washrooms for some fans, let’s call them tier 2, but increased numbers for other fans, let’s call them tier 1. Remember to pick up your #orangecrush branded diapers* in the concourse on the way to your seats.

Obviously there is some kind of problem with the washrooms at our new downtown arena, because this was becoming a problem before the playoffs. Also, it’s probably getting blown out of proportion by men who aren’t used to waiting in lines for washrooms, like women often do.

*Oilers’ branded diapers are not a real product as far as I know. If it becomes one, I demand 10% of all sales.

Public engagement

Tonight, there’s an open house about the Stadium Station ARP (area redevelopment plan), at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 178, 6-8:30 p.m.

The second of this week’s two open houses for the future Northeast River Crossing is today, 4-8 p.m., at Horse Hill School.

There’s an open house for the Canossa and Elsinore neighbourhoods related to northeast road reconstruction, tonight at St. Charles Elementary School, 6-8 p.m.