City Notebook: Sometimes the obvious choice is controversial, but it’s still the obvious choice

By COLLIN GALLANT on January 7, 2023.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

To sum up a year in a single sentence or story is a chore.

This column, as evidence, typically stretches the definition of “750-word limit.”

But the process can also be a minefield.

The News took not a little heat after noting last weekend that locally-based convoy leader Tamara Lich was the newsmaker of the year in 2022.

We note again it’s not a popularity contest, or some award or endorsement of the controversial figure. But, objectively, when a Hatter is in national headlines for 10 months, it’s hard to come up with even another candidate, let alone contender.

Is it a newspaper’s job to avoid noting uncomfortable facts?

That kinda sounds like fake news.

For good or bad the convoy protests dominated the news cycle.

It’s up to you the reader to determine how you should feel about that issue.

What else is clear though is that most Canadians are kind of sick of hearing about the protests. Polling shows this, even on the Prairies. And even the Conservative Party seems cooled on them and is now testing how supporters would react if it called for flags to be turned right-side up.

They wonder how to accomplish it while still keeping the heat on the Liberal Party, but, like most things these days, politics can be a real minefield.

Big year at city hall?

One year under the belt of Mayor Linnsie Clark has shown that the 42-year-old lawyer is much more comfortable talking about procedure than making major policy statements, but could that change in 2023?

Again, the News has come under fire for touching too lightly on the new council’s record. Portions of the population call routinely to wonder aloud what, if anything, council is doing.

It’s not what people are used to, and it hasn’t helped when items like urban hens get more time in council than a new industry attraction strategy.

For her part, Clark told the News that administrative changes, new committees and procedure reviews in 2022 were in line with her campaign call to improve transparency at city hall.

And she said it while sidestepping the idea that the previous goings on at city hall were untoward.

“Attention wasn’t necessarily paid to those sort of details in the past, but when you replace most of a council on a change mandate, it is incumbent on the council to really take a good look,” Clark told the News in a year-end interview.

Still…

Among the comings and goings at city hall, incoming city manager Ann Mitchell on Feb. 5 will replace interim manager Glenn Feltham, who replaced Bob Nicolay.

Nobody has replaced outgoing executives at Invest Medicine Hat, but we’re told a full review on how the city handles economic development is on the to-do list for early in 2023.

Tangentially, interim police chief Al Murphy officially replaces resigned police chief Mike Worden. The swearing in is set for Jan. 20.

Onward

Officials with the energy offices at the utility department, which are overseeing the carbon hub project, have said that planning, engineering and initial drilling will continue for 2023.

That work is carried largely by grant funding, but a budget request and go-ahead decision item may come forward this two-year budget cycle.

The city will also complete its environmental road map in 2023.

A year of note

The coming year will see the 140th anniversary of the construction camp settlement that became Medicine Hat as well as the discovery of natural gas in CPR Water Well No. 1 (near Alderson, by the way).

A look ahead

City committee business reconvenes this week.

100 years ago

Delegates to the 10th annual conference of the Alberta Federation of Labour arrived in Medicine Hat and spent little time before issuing a denunciation of police action on coal strikers near Nordegg, the News noted in early 1923.

Also arriving in town, 36 breeding foxes to stock the recently created “Silver Black Fox Co.” in Riverside.

Alberta’s minimum wage for women would be set at $14 for a 48-hour work week in 1923.

On the idea of a Canadian constitution, former wartime PM Robert Borden told a U.S. conference that “the British Commonwealth can speak with a voice louder than the United Kingdom alone … though the dominions must necessarily accept and realize wider responsibility.”

Beer consumption in Great Britain fell to 18 million barrels in 1922, about half of pre-war levels, a situation attributed to new taxes, high unemployment and the loss of men to the conflict.

Speculation in London supposed that the Prince of Wales would likely soon choose a bride. Princess Yolanda, the daughter of Italian King Victor Emmanuel had recently visited (wink wink).

Scientists at Princeton announced they had taken temperature measurements from the surface of the moon.

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