City Notebook: Lame ducks

By Collin Gallant on January 11, 2025.

Mayor Linnsie Clark would like to see a drop-dead date set next fall, after which city council wouldn’t debate any major action, though that date, and the definition of major decision, is, well, debatable.

City manager Ann Mitchell is on the same sort of page, or at least says she’ll look into potentially adopting practice from Ontario that limits official business in the lead-up to balloting.

Opponents of the city’s solar energy aspirations hope to make it an election issue, land developers want a thorough (i.e. potentially year-long) look into how development fees are set, and many Hatters with opinions on other issues may feel Oct. 20 can’t come fast enough.

There’s no doubt the election is on the minds of voters, though it’s still 10 months away. That seems like a long time to do nothing.

Local past practice is murky.

In 2021, the city’s audit committee delayed the release of summer financial statements (including the summer power export results), until after the October vote.

That same year, the energy committee specifically held a meeting to outline challenges and the potential effect of net-zero regulations on city business interests – in the interest of getting that issue before a better-informed electorate.

Two interesting examples come from more distant history.

In 2001, the Ted Grimm-led city council announced the $95-million purchase of Allied Oil and Gas in a special meeting of council on the Friday prior to the Monday vote.

Grimm wasn’t running again that year, but another example comes from 1977. That year, Grimm held a press conference after the final council meeting of the term to outline two blockbuster deals, but embargoed the information until after the vote.

At issue was a new buffer zone with Western Co-operative Fertilizer and a power purchase agreement with Cancarb.

Two days later, Grimm lost by about 600 votes to Milt Reinhardt, and the land and energy deals were publicized the following day.

Beat out the clock

In another case of deja-vu-all-over-again, local developers and city officials will crack open the city’s system for determining off-site development levies in 2025.

See above item, but a similar effort in 2012 was subject to delay in an obvious strategy to run out the clock ahead of a 2013 civic vote that swung on economic development.

The planned update of cost-per-hectare to run roads, sewers and other infrastructure to new communities was presented to council in late 2024, but was tabled when council said more study was needed.

Now, staff hope it can be done before the October election, but the issue again hinges on a complicated relationship between what actual costs are and how much the city may contribute from taxpayers to get development moving, both in outright share and development subsidies.

Quick ones

– Canada could have three different prime ministers in the 2025 calendar year, leading to some eye rolls and comparisons to the situation in Britain. Let’s talk when Canada has seven PMs in eight years. (Bonus question: Can you name them?)

– A little bird notes that among anniversaries in the year ahead, the Rotary Music Festival will turn 70.

– Chirps as well state that we got little something wrong last week noting the change of ownership of the Beefeater restaurant. It apparently doesn’t happen for a few months, but watch this space for full details soon.

A look ahead

A plan to add a temporary overnight shelter capacity at the Mustard Seed’s community outreach centre on Allowance Avenue will go before the municipal planning commission meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

100 years ago

More interest in deep oil drilling has arrived in Medicine Hat with the new year, the News remarked in early 1925 of an offer put before city council by an Oklahoma oil tycoon.

Locals C.S. Blanchard and mine-owner J.B. Swan would act as intermediaries in discussing access to the city’s geological rights.

Entries to the Medicine Hat Poultry Association show it “improved every year,” said judges at the annual event, singling out the partridge rocks of G.T. Konvig, of the city, and white brown leghorns of D. Macdonald.

Ranching pioneer L. Chas. Brown, who owned interests stretching from Eagle Butte to Elkwater, died at his Third Street residence.

Medicine Hat’s ladies hockey teams got underway under newly finalized names, the Greyhounds and the Bobbies.

Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of topics for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com.