Grande Prairie City Council has formally adopted its advocacy priority list for the year to ensure the correct items are pushed toward other entities to have in the city.
Council identified five key items on top of the previously identified, in its most recent list including- electricity distribution, additional hospital support, medical response funding, support for Northwestern Polytechnic, and affordable housing.
Mayor Jackie Clayton says council utilizes the list to ensure its members remain aware of what residents are asking for in the community and provide other government bodies with a concise and clear message of what the city is asking for.
“The idea of the advocacy priorities list is in essence, we focus on main advocacy items, but also we focus on different advocacy ministers, whether they’re provincial or federal, we like to have a document prepared that highlights the main, core priorities,” she says. “Those five items that were approved today are items that we work on on a regular basis and they are the ones that continually, we’re hearing from residents and businesses across the region of where we need to focus our advocacy attention.”
According to the mayor, the items on the list are reviewed monthly and the document is revisited by council annually to determine whether some need to be adjusted or what items are successful.
“If we’re successful, that item gets removed, and if new things come up across the region in our engagement with residents and stakeholders, we add them to the list,” she says.
Council formally adopts the advocacy list for the year annually, and Clayton says the items identified become part of the city’s marketing materials for the year.
