CCDA exudes confidence about future of downtown

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on January 24, 2019.

With an unsatisfying thud, city council’s debate Monday on cutting a grant to the City Centre Development Agency resulted in a 4-4 tie and therefore no change.

For some that’s a frustrating continuation of the status quo.

For some it’s a signal that a largely revamped volunteer CCDA board is doing good work and deserves some leeway.

For others that’s yet another sign of gridlock in the city’s centre.

It’s hoped though, the long debate — no matter how veiled — could open a new direction in the decades-old conversation about the vitality of the downtown core.

Even council members who opposed the cut intimate that it is time for some organizational renewal, and a rejuvenation of the agency’s mandate and relationship with its members.

Current CCDA board chair Jeremy Silver says that work is already underway. A board that’s largely new from previous years is working with positive economic winds.

Long-time observers and actors in this seemingly endless debate about the CCDA’s effectiveness will note they’ve heard this before.

So the perennial question remains of how, why, who and what will get downtown booming again?

An end to the CCDA? A rebirth of the organization? The formation of something new, or nothing at all?

As rightly noted by several council members during Monday’s debate, the answer lies with downtown business owners.

Beyond the tie vote, the end result of calling Silver onto the carpet was a clear statement by council that the group needs to earn support of members who usually find reason to criticize a seeming lack of progress.

It’s a deep hole to start in, though Silver and current volunteer board say they’re up for the task.

There’s no end of background here. Bad blood, gripes, grudges and rivalries have been a detriment to both the agency and the community it serves.

Three years ago, the CCDA-run Monarch Theatre was embroiled in a workplace standards controversy. Even with a major staff turnover afterwards there’s been no official determination of the extent of problems, blame or reprimand.

But will a public airing of grievances help downtown operators get involved or feel better about paying their levy? Will it help turn opinion of the shoppers of Medicine Hat, many who are content to think of downtown as rundown at best and better off dead at worst?

Probably not.

This month, Coun. Jamie McIntosh pushed council to consider scaling back a grant to CCDA, from $100,000 presently to $75,000 in 2020, then assumedly less in future years. At least part of McIntosh’s motion, he states, is meant to dispel the notion that CCDA and the city are too closely related.

The city’s solicitor states the relationship is as it should be as laid out by provincial legislation.

Silver argues the grants cover the cost of the CCDA handling hanging baskets, while other amounts “flow through” to business owners who improve their storefronts.

Technical explanations likely won’t matter much to CCDA critics, though.

City Hall loaned the money to buy the Monarch, provides the grant, council approves nominees for the CCDA board of directors.

However, it’s near epidemic for Hatters to blame city hall for matters well beyond its control, and there is no shortage of people calling for “the city” to step in to fix problems.

Telling a vocal faction it simply doesn’t understand the technicalities hardly seems like a viable strategy.

Silver states that it’s hard to rejuvenate an image overnight, but a year-old strategic plan to bolster support is working and steps are being made by a new board.

Will it work?

That’s for downtown business owners to decide, though it is refreshing to hear some confidence coming from an agency that is supposed to be fighting for downtown.