Medicine Hat city council committee appointments

By COLLIN GALLANT on November 1, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Some of Medicine Hat’s newest city councillors will also be the busiest, according to a list of council committee appointments released at Monday’s organizational meeting on Monday night.

Six of eight councillors elected last month in the municipal election are new to council and politics in general.

With three councillors from the previous term not seeking re-election, another two losing at the ballot box and the death of incumbent candidate Jim Turner, only longtime councillor Robert Dumanowski and three-term member Darren Hirsch have council experience in the new group of nine.

Appointments by new first-term Mayor Linnsie Clark also reflect widespread change.

Alison Van Dyke, who launched an opposition campaign to a potential power plant sale in early 2021, will become chair of the utility and infrastructure committee, and is vice chair of public services.

The local food, health-care and anti-poverty advocate will also sit on the Medicine Hat Police Commission, along with several minor appointments.

Dumanowski, who chaired two committees for most of the previous term, maintains his chairmanship of corporate services committee, which oversees finance, and joins utilities group as vice-chair.

Adding experience to utility committee, which is also responsible for municipal works department, is Andy McGrogan as its third member. The retired police chief ran this fall after 12 years as a senior administrator in the city. He will chair the administrative and legislative review committee, which deals with corporate policy and bylaw analysis.

Rounding out the main standing committees is public services, where Ramona Robins as chair, Van Dyke and first-term council member Allison Knodel will oversee the largest municipal division by budget. It oversees parks and cultural facilities and programming, as well as the fire department.

Hirsch, entering his second consecutive term and third overall, will remain head of the audit committee, but wasn’t assigned a major committee.

He becomes chair of the municipal planning commission and will represent the city’s interests at the Cypress View foundation and the effort to twin Highway 3.

Robins, a former Crown prosecutor and now administrator with the service, will also sit on the Cypress View Foundation board, and be council’s representative to he Medicine Hat Public Library and Community Housing Society.

Shila Sharps, a downtown business owner and first-term councillor joins corporate services and audit committees, along with the police commission.

She and Dumanowski are the Hat’s two members to an inter-municipal cooperation group with Redcliff and Cypress County launched last term with a wide mandate.

Cassi Hider, another first term councillor, will chair the subdivision and appeal board, which hears appeals of development permit decisions. She will also sit on the corporate services committee, and several outside boards, including Tourism Medicine Hat.

Knodel will liaise with the Chamber of Commerce and work with McGrogan and Robins on the administrative review committee.