City Notebook: Getting down to business

By COLLIN GALLANT on September 17, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Council members are getting down to business to hire a new city manager, the News revealed this week as the latest point of an emerging debate about whether the city is moving too slow on some issues.

It seems it would be a top priority, to those who maybe worry about the high turnover in last year’s election or had their candidates left out of the winner’s circle on election night 11 months ago.

Maybe it’s just right, considering the amount of time required to get up to speed.

The city’s interim CAO succinctly told the News that you can’t rush important decisions.

Another decision in that category includes a utility rate review that won’t be available until after next year’s utility rates are set in December.

Work is proceeding, however, as the generally more-open portions of committee meetings suggest, but it’s a quick go-to for incoming politicians to suggest more study is needed.

And didn’t most winning platforms boast “good decision making” as a top qualification and promise?

An interesting side note to the CAO hiring process is that it is also up for discussion whether the task of conducting short-list interviews and the final decision could fall to the “Employee Council” relations committee, created just this year.

Previous searches from chief administrative officers in 2014 and 2018 were done by a hiring committee comprising the mayor and two standing committee chairs.

Employee committee members Ramona Robins and Alison Van Dyke both lead committees, Public Services and Utilities and Infrastructure, respectively.

But all three, including Employee Committee chair Shila Sharps, were first elected in the fall of 2021.

Convoy happenings

MP Glen Motz says the plan is to continue full speed ahead with the work of the Emergency Act oversight committee when parliament resumes this week, and toward the beginning of a separate Royal Commission that is looking into government’s use of the act during convoy protests last winter.

The local MP is one of two Conservative members on the committee who could call witnesses or recall witnesses this month before the slightly delayed commission gets to work in October.

Royal

The Royal Hotel in Medicine Hat will be in some fond memories this weekend after the locale burned down on Friday.

It’s maybe to much to call it’s architecture landmark, though loved for what it was. (To an older generation of News reporter it was a legendary destination for News staff after the afternoon edition was printed at its downtown offices up until 1982.)

So, Black’s Sporting Goods was across the alley and just down the block was the Central Block. And no the Royal lost to fire? Sheesh.

A look ahead

City council’s regularly scheduled meeting on Monday has been cancelled out of respect for the Queen’s funeral earlier that day. All business moves to the Oct. 3 meeting.

The Together Again festival set for Saturday downtown is still a go despite some potential problems after the Royal Hotel fire on Friday. Events are centred further west on First Street, and organizers are asking attendees to be forgiving as they consider minor alterations to accommodate the fire cleanup.

Of note here is that while the seacan vendor space is scheduled to be operating as intended, the remainder of the site was expected to be free parking. That shares part of an alley with the Royal.

100 years ago

In a first for Canada and a break from practice, British Prime Minister Lloyd George petitioned, not declared, that Dominions like Canada and Newfoundland provide military support toward the “Near East” crisis in Turkey and the Dardanelles, the News reported in September 1922.

Infamous Crowsnest Pass bootlegger Emilio Picarielo was held in cells of the Lethbridge gaol charged as a party to the shooting of a Coleman police constable. A nine-year-old girl testified to a police inquest that she saw Picarielo and Mrs. Chas. Lasandra, a wife of a Picarielo associate, gun down her father, Alberta Provincial Police officer Steve Lawson. Lawson had wounded Picarielo’s son with a shot during a car chase a day earlier, and the bootleggers apparently were seeking revenge.

In the Hat, the merchants association asked for bylaw alterations to keep the “half-holiday Wednesday” system in place year-round and allow shopping on Saturday evenings.

Separately, council voted to strictly follow the local policy of cutting off utility service when bills fell two months in arrears.

Hockey Association star Newsy Lalonde’s contract with the Montreal Canadiens had been sold to the Saskatoon Crescents of the Western Association where Lalonde was expected to become player-manager.

Victory Bonds purchased in 1917 could be rolled into new five-year coupons at 5.5 per cent and a bonus one-month’s interest for rolling them over, the Minister of Finance announced.

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.