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“Live music, face painting, balloon twisting and more.” City hosting free community event Thursday afternoon to promote Downtown Activation Playbook

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Red Deer’s downtown is a place of community, gathering and celebration animated by spaces to connect, entertain and reflect. It is the heart of the city. In celebration of a vibrant downtown, a free community event is taking place on August 17!

With the past, present and future of downtown Red Deer in mind, local stakeholders will be sharing an exciting update on the revitalization of Downtown Red Deer, based on action items outlined in the Downtown Activation Playbook.

The family-friendly gathering will also feature live music, face painting, balloon twisting and more. Additionally, downtown area businesses will be offering limited time deals.

WHEN:             Thursday, August 17, 2023

4 p.m. – Event begins

5 p.m. – Speaking program

7 p.m. – Event ends

WHERE:          Ross Street – Downtown Red Deer

Between Gaetz Avenue and Little Gaetz

About the project

Launched in summer 2021, the Downtown Identity Plan is a downtown identity and strategy plan that outlines a shared vision, goals and opportunities for both the community and The City to implement. The aim is to have an identifiable, well-invested downtown where residents and visitors repeatedly participate in unique, engaging, diverse and positive activities and experiences. Key areas that may be considered by the engagement process and the final plan include heritage, transportation, tourism, the economy, environment, social factors and more.

The Downtown Activation Playbook is a key milestone of the Downtown Identity Plan project, and provides the roadmap for a new downtown identity, informed by community voice, highlighting key conditions for success, streams of action, indicators, and initial moves. On July 18, 2022, City Council adopted the Downtown Activation Playbook as a community planning tool.

Downtown Activation Playbook

As a community planning tool, the Playbook is intended to help The City, stakeholders and the broader community shape their planning for downtown places and spaces. Each action in the Playbook identifies the role The City could play, but also the other organizations and partners that could lead, support or implement the initiative. Budget for specific actions and initiatives will be considered as part of The City’s overall budget planning process.

The Playbook was developed with significant input from the public, through an engagement process and a Downtown Working Collaborative. Through a combination of interviews, workshops, and an online questionnaire, the engagement process captured feedback from over 1,600 Red Deerians of all ages. In the second phase, participants provided feedback on the emerging Playbook direction (vision, conditions for success and streams of action) through a series of one-on-one interviews and presentations.

The next step in the Downtown Identity Plan project is to develop a visual identity for downtown that conveys the vision, builds excitement and identified the area as a unique place.

View the full Downtown Activation Playbook (pdf).

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Largest fraud in US history? Independent Journalist visits numerous daycare centres with no children, revealing massive scam

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A young journalist has uncovered perhaps the largest fraud scheme in US history. 

He certainly isn’t a polished reporter with many years of experience, but 23 year old independent journalist Nick Shirley seems to be getting the job done. Shirley has released an incredible video which appears to outline fraud after fraud after fraud in what appears to be a massive taxpayer funded scheme involving up to $9 Billion Dollars.

In one day of traveling around Minneapolis-St. Paul, Shirley appears to uncover over $100 million in fraudulent operations.

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“Magnitude cannot be overstated”: Minnesota aid scam may reach $9 billion

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Federal prosecutors say Minnesota’s exploding social-services fraud scandal may now rival nearly the entire economy of Somalia, with as much as $9 billion allegedly stolen from taxpayer-funded programs in what authorities describe as industrial-scale abuse that unfolded largely under the watch of Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. The staggering new estimate is almost nine times higher than the roughly $1 billion figure previously suspected and amounts to about half of the $18 billion in federal funds routed through Minnesota-run social-services programs since 2018, according to prosecutors. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said Thursday, stressing that investigators are still uncovering massive schemes. “This is not a handful of bad actors. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud. Every day we look under a rock and find another $50 million fraud operation.”

Authorities say the alleged theft went far beyond routine overbilling. Dozens of defendants — the vast majority tied to Minnesota’s Somali community — are accused of creating sham businesses and nonprofits that claimed to provide housing assistance, food aid, or health-care services that never existed, then billing state programs backed by federal dollars. Thompson said the opportunity became so lucrative it attracted what he called “fraud tourism,” with out-of-state operators traveling to Minnesota to cash in. Charges announced Thursday against six more people bring the total number of defendants to 92.

Among the newly charged are Anthony Waddell Jefferson, 37, and Lester Brown, 53, who prosecutors say traveled from Philadelphia to Minnesota after spotting what they believed was easy money in the state’s housing assistance system. The pair allegedly embedded themselves in shelters and affordable-housing networks to pose as legitimate providers, then recruited relatives and associates to fabricate client notes. Prosecutors say they submitted about $3.5 million in false claims to the state’s Housing Stability Services Program for roughly 230 supposed clients.

Other cases show how deeply the alleged fraud penetrated Minnesota’s health-care programs. Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, 27, is accused of setting up a bogus autism therapy nonprofit that paid parents to enroll children regardless of diagnosis, then billed the state for services never delivered, netting roughly $6 million. Another defendant, Asha Farhan Hassan, 28, allegedly participated in a separate autism scheme that generated $14 million in fraudulent reimbursements, while also pocketing nearly $500,000 through the notorious Feeding Our Future food-aid scandal. “Roughly two dozen Feeding Our Future defendants were getting money from autism clinics,” Thompson said. “That’s how we learned about the autism fraud.”

The broader scandal began to unravel in 2022 when Feeding Our Future collapsed under federal investigation, but prosecutors say only in recent months has the true scope of the alleged theft come into focus. Investigators allege large sums were wired overseas or spent on luxury vehicles and other high-end purchases. The revelations have fueled political fallout in Minnesota and prompted renewed federal scrutiny of immigration-linked fraud as well as criticism of state oversight failures. Walz, who is seeking re-election in 2026 after serving as Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, defended his administration Thursday, saying, “We will not tolerate fraud, and we will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.” Prosecutors, however, made clear the investigation is far from finished — and warned the final tally could climb even higher.

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