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In a place like Edmonton, there is perhaps no more bracing reminder of the inevitability of change than the sudden arrival of a winter deep freeze.

As the temperatures have plummeted and the snow has swirled this week, change, you could say, is literally in the air to begin the 2020s.

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In that vein, change has also come to my role with the Edmonton Journal. After 15 months of offering commentary from the Alberta legislature, I have been asked to take on a broader swath of subjects for the coming year, with a specific focus on issues important to Edmonton.

Many of those column topics will stem from debates at city hall, but I also hope to showcase Edmontonians at the forefront of social issues, development and all the pressures that come from being a growing city amid an economic slump.

And I’d love to hear your ideas for column fodder as well.

Though I don’t have ideal 20-20 vision to match the year we’ve begun — I’m now at the age where glasses are a near-term certainty — I still have enough foresight to detect that this will be a year of significant change for Edmonton, where we will receive both long awaited answers to lingering issues along with new challenges.