City Notebook: Four-legged friends and a story taken the wrong way dominate reads in 2019

By COLLIN GALLANT on January 4, 2020.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

When a news story really takes off, strikes a chord or gets people talking, it’s said to have “legs.”

The leggy-ist stories of 2019 had four, so to speak, judging from the 12-month report detailing visits to the News’ website.

In a year that featured titanic election battles, Greta Thunberg’s jaunt through Wildrose Country, cannabis, helium, natural gas, Willie Desjardins’ return, city council boycotting a Quebec conference, and a number of sure shot, eyeball grabbing headlines, it seems pets came out on top.

Stories about pets – pet food recalls, the little explained controversy about stray cats and Medicine Hat’s various animal adoption entities, a pet that was ravaged by a neighbour’s dog after a dispute between the humans – all ranked very high.

It’s perhaps a sign of the times, but the No. 1 most viewed story on the News’ website was a brief about Superstore selling its Trans-Canada Way location in a leaseback situation.

Many readers concluded the store was closing (bad economic news was also a generally popular theme – more so than positive news, strangely), but a follow-up story setting the record straight ranked at No. 150.

Whimsy

There was the story of “Saamis,” a pronghorn buck that was rescued via c-section after his mother was struck on Highway 41, while Winston Jobb (well into his nineties) retired from his business A1 Engine repair and a sabre-toothed cat fossil was identified from the Medicine Hat area. What was your favourite?

The year ahead

– The Hat will welcome more than 4,000 delegates to a regional Jehovah’s Witness conference in June;

– A regional economic development plan that focuses on the agriculture sector is due in early 2020 from rural development agency, Verge;

– The WHL playoffs are only three months away;

– Aurora Cannabis has pencilled in this summer for opening up operations in a portion of its massive Aurora Sun facility;

– Barring the unexpected, Hatters won’t see an election in 2020 – after federal and provincial votes in 2019, the next municipal vote is set for late 2021.

Rep by pop

The County of Newell is prepared to cut the number of council divisions in its boundaries from 10 to nine. This comes after talks of amalgamation between it and several towns in the region fell flat.

Realignment would rebalance population in wards, which currently ranges from 362 to 1,323. A new map could result in each of nine elected officials representing about 850 residents after 2021.

Newell is currently only one of three Alberta counties or municipal districts (of 63 total) that have 10 or more elected representatives.

Cypress County has seven councillors for about 7,600 residents. The County of Forty Mile, seven for 3,600.

Compare this with Saskatchewan, where close to 300 rural municipalities have varying numbers of councillors.

The R.M. of Maple Creek has eight councillors representing a total of 1,200 voters, and it’s one of the bigger ones.

A look ahead

City council begins the New Year with a Monday meeting, and expect news on the curbside recycling front. The Tri-Area development plan, involving the city, Redcliff and Cypress County, goes before the local municipal planning commission on Wednesday.

100 years ago

Canada would become the centre of the British Empire by 1970, the dominion’s top trade official predicted as a new decade dawned, this week in 1920.

Continued settlement, development and trade would join the old country to India via a western route, according to commissioner Lloyd Harris.

A new apparatus employed by the U.S. Navy could transmit 300 works in Morse code per minute via wireless telegraph.

Red Sox slugger Babe Ruth announced that he would not honour the final two years of a contract without a pay raise to $20,000 per season.

Advertisement for the new Egyptian epic at the Dreamland Theatre in Medicine Hat: “It cost Caesar an empire to see Cleopatra. It costs you four bits.”

Hundreds of regulations related to the War Measures Act would expire at midnight on New Year’s Eve, including liquor restrictions and the abolishment of the government censorship office. Remaining in place were rules governing paper, coal, sugar and silver coinage.

The Manitoba Teachers Association promised a campaign in 1920 to organize the profession across the four Western provinces.

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

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