City Notebook: Power struggle

By COLLIN GALLANT on February 5, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

A growing chorus of complaints against high utility bills in Medicine Hat seems to have spurred some action to re-examine how local rates are set, perhaps even re-opening the process, and providing some interim relief.

Councillors on the utility committee say administrators are prepared to give some options for relief and a thorough going-through of why bills are the way they are.

Most folks simply want their bills slashed rather than a discourse or a lot of background.

Impatience seems to be a general theme these days, maybe you’ve noticed.

It’s in this climate that councillors elected last fall may have to answer for a decade of gripes about how utility bills are structured (“It’s the fees!”) or the commodity rate (“Why do we get charged the average?”).

And utility bills are like fish tales… they get bigger and bigger.

It also comes as profits from the power plant’s extremely successful 2021 financial year will be publicly available in March when the city’s annual report is due.

How successful was it? Well, we’ve heard nine digits isn’t out of the question, meaning $100 million, equal to the plant’s best year ever times two.

Most of that comes from export sales – which is the real strength of the way the Gas City power entity is set up – not inside city sales.

So why do residents get whammied with out-of-town prices setting internal rates? Partly because of that familiar refrain that the city should operate a business like a business.

The critique about average prices also fizzles out a bit when fixed rates set at cost recovery plus a return are available.

How popular will that whole-year price be in the early spring when it’s above the market price? Probably not a whole lot.

People love the idea of getting a bargain, or sticking it to the city, but fail to grasp that their interests and the city’s are inter-twined.

When there was a suggestion the city might consider a sale of the power plant assets this time last year, there was a huge outcry.

It would have provided a perfect opportunity to reset the relationship between a publicly owned utility and the public that owns it.

Perhaps that’s what is needed.

Cypress vote

A byelection in Cypress County means voters in the northwest of the county will go to the polls on Feb. 7 for the first time since 2010 to elect a local representative, and just the fourth time in 40 years.

Keith Ritz and Layla Vickerman are the candidates this time around, but when only one qualified nomination is received, that person is acclaimed.

More often than not, that’s what’s happened in Division Nine ever since Cypress County itself was an improvement district in the early 1980s.

The last race, in 2010, saw Bob Olson elected. In 2007 Peter Konosky won a race to replace retiring councillor and longtime reeve Jack Osadczuk, who himself only faced election once in 26 years.

Advance voting is open this weekend.

A look ahead

City council sits Monday with a monster agenda including a presentation on the plan to revamp the city’s environmental roadmap. A phonebook-thick agenda package also includes the Parks and Recreation Masterplan, an overview of city’s investment policy and another on the ins and outs of property tax assessment.

100 years ago

City council abolished the utility superintendent position, instead giving a raise and new power to the chief engineer to adjust fees with a newly formed panel of aldermen, the News reported in early February 1922.

Medicine Hat council also banned the practice of allowing horses to overnight in the city market, forcing hucksters to engage livery stables.

The Alberta government committed to establishing an agricultural college at the opening of the new sitting at the legislature – the first under the rule of the United Farmers of Alberta government.

A blockbuster Toronto inquest into the death of a teen after he ingested “beauty powder” to cure acne took a sensational turn. The boy’s father committed suicide and was later identified as asking a print shop to make up a false label. The bottle contained strychnine. The intended target of the plot was his estranged wife.

An announcement by a New York advertising agency that it was developing a machine to project billboards on to clouds in the night sky was panned in a News editorial.

“All the poetry of night will fade,” it lamented, “replaced by visions of disposable razor blades.”

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