City Notebook: Time is money for city legacy fund

By Collin Gallant on September 28, 2024.

In business, the word “new” is probably the most important to use when wooing the masses, any ad exec will tell you.

In investing however, “boring” and “disciplined” have more tangible track records.

And so the Hat’s Heritage Savings Fund could soon be “rebranded” as the Medicine Hat Endowment fund, and given an official use – it’s first! – to churn out returns to offset taxes.

That would solve the final mile of a structural budget deficit the city’s been pushing and pulling at for the past 10 years.

Either way, such an end use has only been alluded to over the years. It started out as a vague rainy day fund, perhaps tapped for capital projects at some point.

It was so named at the insistence of former mayor Ted Clugston to piggy back on a connection to the Alberta Heritage Savings Fund.

That was meant to broadcast foresight, but it also managed to inherit some of the provincial fund’s baggage. Namely, people are sure that politicians are prepared to raid it, or see it as a monument to lost opportunities. Isn’t it raining, they ask?

The current proposal to pay $5 million per year in interest to the operating budget is coming back for a final vote in October.

But, in the public’s mind, are avoiding a tax hike and lowering taxes the same thing?

And, there’s always the question of how to keep the local $200-million account from being a slush fund.

No council can be handcuffed by the previous one, that’s true, but there’s one elegant idea to make it relatively hard to access.

The City of Edmonton’s EdTel Fund was created in 1995 when Edmonton Telephones was sold to Telus for $470 million.

Its bylaw (including dividend and inflation indexing formulas) requires that any other withdraw, change of use or bylaw amendment requires a full public hearing.

That’s to essentially force council of the day to face the public and fully justify itself.

The EdTel fund’s current balance, by the way, is now $900 million after averaging an 8 per cent return over its lifetime, while paying out $980 million over time.

That’s what 30 boring years will get you – if you’re disciplined.

Hockey talk

After 10 years, management at Co-op Place may need to consider the state of the drapes at the city-owned hockey arena, namely whether to put them in storage as potentially larger crowds spill up into the previously roped-off upper section.

While both Medicine Hat and Lethbridge seek cash from the province toward a Memorial Cup bid, the Calgary Canucks will get a $240,000 provincial grant to host the 2025 Centennial Cup championship tournament.

That was originally awarded to Okotoks a few years back, but – a hiccup – the Okotoks Oilers left the nationally sanctioned Junior A loop mid season last year (as did the Brooks Bandits).

The Bandits, by the way, are set to host their first BC-based opponents this weekend in the Penticton Vees and Trail Smoke Eaters. Their initial B.C. road trip is on Oct. 16 to Chilliwack for an in-season tournament weekend.

A look ahead

The Community Foundation is set to launch its new Redcliff Legacy Fund on Thursday, the same night an open house is planned at Desert Blume Golf clubhouse to outline a new intermunicipal agreement surrounding Medicine Hat

The next open city council meeting is Oct. 7.

100 years ago

Former Medicine Hat lawyer Ivan C. Rand could soon be named the attorney general of New Brunswick, the News reported 100 years ago this week, relaying a rumour in the Fredricton Gleaner.

The Harvard-educated former partner in the local Laidlaw-Blanchard firm had returned to his home province in 1920 to advise the Canadian National Railway’s legal department.

Mayor Huckvale pointed to a policy of “rebonding” debt at lower interest rates for “slowly, none-the-less, surely” lifting the city from “financial morass.”

The liquor licence of the Sgt.’s Mess of the First Mounted Rifles in Medicine Hat was suspended after inspectors found beer was sold on a Sunday.

An underground explosion at the Ajax Mine west of Medicine Hat killed coal miner Jimmy Shepherd. The unmarried 23-year-old recent arrival from Scotland was a popular member of the Callies football club.

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