City Notebook: Signs they are a changin’

By Collin Gallant on March 15, 2025.

A portion of Sixth Avenue in front of the Chamber of Commerce will receive a secondary street name – “Commerce Way” – when the chambers across Alberta meet here in May.

Not to worry, the non-official effort won’t result in any actual address changes. Such signs also denote the former “Toronto Street” and “Esplanade” in the city centre.

This fun footnote came to council last week from city hall’s Civic Naming Committee, itself a footnote which pops up from time to time, but is generally a mystery even to those who sit on it.

Even its chair, Coun. Cassi Hider, admitted some surprise that it was convened to consider a request from the Chamber of Commerce to acknowledge the groups’ 125th anniversary this year.

In 2020, the committee officially denoted “Goodyear Way” in Brier Park, and in 2018, created “Rotary Centennial Way” (nee 23rd Street N.W.) for similar reasons.

But the committee is also mentioned more often as a peculiarity, or proof that an overhaul of city committees is needed.

Granted, a committee that never meets seems a strong example of inefficiency, but to gauge efficiency one must consider the value of inputs as a factor.

Since it involves very little time and absolutely zero financial resources (applicants typically pay for signs), can it described as waste?

While it might be an anachronism, it does handle requests in the community, according to administrators.

That, perhaps, could be handled by another, much busier committee, like development and infrastructure, but what’s to gain?

The whole committee system review has been on in the background of arguably much more important work.

Do Hatters really want to see another policy development exercise during this term, especially for something as pedestrian as street-naming requests?

Would they rather just stick with something that works at little cost?

Election costs

The City of Lethbridge is formally opposing new regulations that will require hand-counting of ballots in next fall’s city hall election.

Council members there say it’s unnecessary and will add $300,000 to the cost of running the local election. An estimate states as many as 80 workers would be needed and still take 44 hours to count ballots in that city of 100,000 residents.

Medicine Hat’s new budget outlines a total cost estimate to conduct the local vote at $400,000, or about $200,000 more than in 2021.

A look ahead

City council will hear a new proposal to offer tax incentives and tax forgiveness to spur new development projects in the city when it convenes on Monday, as well as debate a call to release senior managers’ expenses and create a non-profit operating grant program.

100 years ago

A vote in the Alberta legislature defeated local amendments to the Medicine Hat city charter that would extend mayoral terms to two years, formalize a local recall process and move toward proportional vote for alderman, the News reported in March 1925.

Murder suspect John Kollesavich was arrested for the death of trainman J.H Caulkins at Walsh. A hearing in police court heard the accused claim that an unknown man had accosted him on the night in question, forcing him to drive a buggy to the station and take part in the shooting. Police called it a fiction.

Local police were investigating after manager of Riverside Nurseries arrived to find the greenhouse had been burgled in the night and the heat shut off. Damage consisted of the entire tomato and flower crop valued at $3,000.

The CPR would built a stockyard at its siding at Cassils along with a 90-foot turntable at Lethbridge as part of a 1925 capital appropriation program.

The Idaho Sugar Co. announced that it would seek to bring Russian Mennonites and Japanese immigrants as farm labour for its proposed refinery at Raymond.

A rabbit drive in Lomond, Vauxhall and Bow City districts resulted in a kill of 5,400. Each earned a 7-cent bounty.

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.