City Notebook:The not-so-secret plans of working together
By COLLIN GALLANT on February 15, 2020.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant When a badly kept secret hangs around for so long, it’s hard to recall what’s been made official and what hasn’t. Whatever the case, it’s pretty clear that an expansive area northwest of Redcliff proposed vaguely as a “joint planning exercise” in a planned update to the city, Redcliff and county development agreement is set to become a jointly promoted industrial park and, potentially, a rail yard. That sort of “logistics park” has been floated locally since 2014-ish. In the interim others in the region, Foremost and Oyen, built theirs and have already begun unloading wind turbines, pipe, grain and frac sand. The entire plan goes to a unique three-council public hearing on Feb. 27. What’s new this week is that a three-municipality deal in Grande Prairie region that provides a split of tax revenue between three partners on a proposed industrial site was stamped by the province as a whiz-bang opportunity to lure new industry. Former City of Grande Prairie CAO and current Medicine Hat CAO Bob Nicolay has made no secret he thinks the formula works and could work here. Promoting that sort of “pay and plug” site that would be pre-approved by Alberta Environment for industrial use was a campaign promise of the United Conservatives in 2019. This week, at the local Chamber of Commerce policy meeting, the two were linked up as an issue the business group was watching pretty closely, but with very little further explanation required. Or maybe it’s a case of adding two and two and coming up with five, but I doubt it. Promotions plural Reports arrived that Hat-raised, New York-based journalist Craig Wilson has been promoted to the senior producer of the CBS News weekend operations. Staying with the Wilsons for a moment, Colleen Wilson informed the News recently that her second and final term on the University of Alberta Senate was coming to a close. At that time she appealed to any alumni in the Hat area to consider applying to fill the position, saying that it’s key to have the region represented at the institution’s highest level. The application deadline is March 1. Quick ones – The city planning department is hyped up about the impending launch of a new computer system that will allow digitize plan submissions and better track applications, the planning commission heard this week. – A new appeal board to handle vicious dogs consists of Couns. Brian Varga and Kris Samraj, as well as city clerk Angela Cruickshank. That was passed last week to fill a gap in the responsible pet bylaw of some years back. Most city regulations require there to be an appeal process – in this case generally described as “council.” A look ahead Council will sit on Tuesday to account for the holiday weekend and will debate a proposal to provide grant funding to install sprinklers in new houses built in a community outside the fire department’s standard response time zone. Monday also marks one week until the provincial legislature begins its winter sitting with the provincial budget due to be tabled the following day, Feb. 25. 100 years ago Boosterism for a proposed Medicine Hat Irrigation district reached a fevered pitch as the Board of Trade circulated petitions after meetings with the premier of the subject, this week in 1920. Elsewhere, the Alberta Retail Merchants Association requested that shopkeepers be exempt from the Factories Act – the major piece of workplace legislation – and instead be governed by a new Shops Act. Suggestions included the government allowing a 52-hour work week, standardize closing times, move over food safety regulations from public health boards and more strictly govern the operation of “Oriental and Greek” stores and Chinese laundries. The Canadian government would not accept anything less than full voting privileges in the League of Nations, Ottawa stated after reports that U.S. officials were brokering a deal with the British government that see British Dominions downgraded. A newly discovered salt lake bed near Kerrobert, Sask, could contain as much as 2 million tons of sodium sulphate, according to a syndicate created to exploit the soda bed. The coming American League Baseball schedule would include games on Sundays in New York State, where laws had recently been changed. 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 30-29
