It seemed a strange artifact of the past.

For years at City Hall, the road engineers would address one group of four councillors every other Wednesday.

Building and real estate directors would show up Tuesdays, addressing a separate rotating set of city councillors. And if a park or boulevard was on the agenda, that went Mondays to yet another group of four city councillors.

That’s finally changing.

“Now we have all those people answering questions consistently in front of the urban planning committee,” said Mayor Don Iveson. “That’s how you do good urban planning.”

The new committee structure takes effect at City Hall Monday. It reflects the major reorganizing of city departments that took effect in March and results in three new committees: Executive, Urban Planning and Community and Public Services.

Agendas and reports for those committees are posted the Thursday before at edmonton.ca/meetings. Members of the public can have five minutes to speak to any item by registering before the meeting begins.

Too often, Edmonton’s departments have acted like “six or seven different loosely affiliated organizations,” said Iveson. That needs to change as the city grows and becomes more urban.

Starting this week, executive committee will be responsible for overseeing all major infrastructure projects, budgets, taxes and other financial matters. Urban planning will co-ordinate projects in the planning stages to ensure designs achieve multiple city goals. Community and public services will handle operational issues for everything from filling potholes to running buses and recreation centres.

Full council typically meets the Tuesday after committees meet. They debate anything with significant budget impacts and other contentious items committee members chose to send up.

Council also has less frequent audit and utility committees. Public hearings happen every other Monday afternoon to deal with specific zoning and development issues.

The city’s operations have also suffered from a lack of integration in the past, said Iveson. A truck from the parks department would sweep the gravel off the boulevard in the spring. A separate crew with the transportation department would be responsible for cleaning up the road. Still another department was responsible for the truck itself.

“That’s an oversimplified example,” said Iveson. But now those crews are in the same department and will all report to the community and public services committee. “You can begin to rationalize whether one truck can do two jobs on the same trip and get some efficiency.”

“It’s thinking about those as services to our public. Whether it’s a clean and passible road, a great park or transit system, these things are all public services. They’re not empires unto themselves.”

estolte@postmedia.com

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