The growth of our community is visible everywhere

Last weekend I had the pleasure of joining our mayor, several council members and Chestermere residents to take part in the grand opening of the new No-Frills grocery store.
I was happy to be there for several reasons. I understand this store will employ close to 100 people – creating some great job opportunities for our town. Secondly, I’m encouraged by the investment in the area, which comes along with our growth. The more businesses that set up shop here, the more options consumers have, the more dollars staying in our community.
I know our town is working hard at attracting businesses, and I applaud the elected leadership as well as the hard-working members of the community who are making this happen.
I’d like to share another piece of good news. I’m told the announcement of a provincial registry in Chestermere is imminent. As you may know, this has been a long time coming, and again, we need to thank a number of folks in the neighborhood for their efforts. The mayor and our local Chamber of Commerce have worked on this, and I was pleased to stand up in the Legislature and support the cause. Finally we can renew our licenses and have our children take their driver’s tests locally. We’ve had the population to warrant having a registry for a long time now, and it can be frustrating to work through government channels, which are notoriously slow.
The growth of our community is visible everywhere, and maybe the place where it is most clear is inside our schools. This school year began with an outcry from the parents and staff of East Lake School – which opened way over capacity resulting in several classes sharing the library as a home room. Fortunately, eight new modular classrooms were approved for East Lake as part of the last government school announcement, which is good news. I have met with the Minister of Education, and written letters about the situation, to try to find a solution to the overcrowding. I will continue to try to work with the government to improve the process for planning, approval and installation of modular classrooms, so that students and teachers don’t have to wait so long to get relief from these crowded learning environments.
Finally, I wanted to mention that I joined Chestermere Firefighter Jordan VeVang and Constable Mac Jabiyev this weekend, reading to kids to celebrate the great work done by our Chestermere Public Library. I’d like to give a big shout out to library staff and the countless people who fundraise to make the library and community better. Bernie Maillet dropped by with a large cheque and will raise even more at this year’s Loop the Lake run. Rumour is he is planning the run for Father’s Day.
I’m spending a lot of time in Edmonton these days with the Legislature sitting, but I’ll never forget that “home is where the heart is.” I’ll look forward to seeing you out and about at the many community events in Chestermere and area.