City Notebook: Little ado about something…

By Collin Gallant on December 15, 2018.

This week, the worst kept secret in town became a matter of public record as a development permit for a new car lot was let for Canalta Hotel’s site on Strachan Road.

When complete the new Sun Country Nissan location will pretty much mark the buildout of the 17-acre plot that once sat in the city’s inventory as a testament to slow commercial growth in the previous 10 or so years.

Some of us are old enough to remember when that site was proposed by numerous members of the public as a potential site for the replacement Veiner Centre.

The logic at that time, oft-repeated on social media, was that if something was going to be built privately at the site “it would have happened by now.”

Five years later, planned are a hotel, 250-unit seniors’ living facility and the car lot, with a commercial strip and South Country Co-op gas and liquor outlet well underway.

Real estate, it turns out, is a bit of a long game.

Now, if we can only figure out what the whole “What the Fox, Medicine Hat?” campaign is all about.

Cancarb

Mayor Ted Clugston says he’s always had a soft spot in his heart for Cancarb, which this week invited media and dignitaries to the facility to announce a $40-million expansion.

“I’ve been watching that plant my entire life,” said Clugston, who grew up on Prospect Drive, saying that even as a youngster he’d look across the river valley at the plant’s flare stack.

The city’s part in the announcement was to note an expansion of a power takeoff agreement from the plant’s heat-recovery generator that was commissioned in 2001. That original 20-year pact is approaching an initial expiry date, but includes four options to extend it by five years each.

In case you’re wondering the additional five megawatts gained in the expansion likely won’t be enough to push off a city plan to spend $1 million evaluating new generation options.

Quick ones

— Among the fine print in the utility division business plans presented earlier this month is a note about examining the city’s dividend policy going forward. Watch this as a key developing issue in 2019.

— Worst idea of the week, possibly the year, goes to a Halifax bakery that created a “donair cupcake” to celebrate something called National Donair Day. OK, here goes: The vanilla cake has donair meat baked in before it’s topped with donair sauce-cream cheese frosting and sundried tomato sprinkles.

A look ahead

Council will wrap up 2018 with a monster-sized agenda that includes the 2019-2022 municipal budget, utility business plans for the same time frame and two public hearings on planning issues.

100 years ago

Bootlegging and whiskey running was growing at an alarming rate, provincial police announced in December 1918, adding that a regular smuggling trail ran from Havre to Edmonton.

As many as 40 cars might be involved in taking “devious routes” across 300 miles of undefended border between Montana and Alberta.

In the only city election race not acclaimed, Ald. Marshall retained his Ward 4 seat with a five vote margin over challenger Jimmy Hole, whom the News characterized as a socialist.

A proposal from the federal militia minister Sydney Mewburn told a Toronto audience that he favoured handing soldiers six-months pay and discharging them immediately rather than keeping them in uniform as they transitioned back from Europe.

Such a war bonus was “only fair” he said and the men should be encouraged away from becoming “loafers.”

The local Medicine Hat reconstruction committee noted that soldiers returning to employment would be welcome, but others should be kept in uniform rather than flooding cities with unemployed men during the winter.

The Hat committee suggested keeping men in uniform until March when the construction season would begin.