Council candidate Chris Hellman would work to offer more tax incentives to potential new business as part of a long-term plan to grow the city and business within.--Submitted Photo
asmith@medicinehatnews.com
It might be difficult to find a major board that Chris Hellman hasn’t been on; now, he seeks to add Medicine Hat city council to the list.
Hellman has served on several board of directors over the course of a decade-plus, including the Chamber of Commerce, Medicine Hat Health Foundation, Root Cellar, the Kinsmen Club of Medicine Hat, THRIVE and Medicine Hat Tourism.
This gives him not only a strong understanding of the structure and procedure associated with municipal government, he says, but also a broad perspective on the needs of the community through his time serving in various sectors.
“I’ve been engaged in the community for a long time, involved in many different organizations. I just wanted to keep doing something for my community, and this felt like the right next step,” said Hellman.
He considers bringing this experience to council to be a priority, and aims to restore cohesion and a co-operative spirit back to council, which he felt to be lacking over the previous term.
He hopes to work as a team and be able to compromise to make the best possible decisions for Medicine Hat as a whole.
“My second priority would be affordability. I believe we’re in an affordability crisis,” said Hellman. “I know the city can’t do a lot about that with regards to most of the cost of living, but they do have some control over the price of utilities and taxes, and I have some strategies that I’d like to pursue as far as bringing both of those down.”
He brought up possibilities such as investigating the different fees associated with utilities, such as the Municipal Consent and Access Fee, which he noted was not charged in neighbouring communities such as Redcliff and Cypress County. He would also like to see a return to the Financially Fit Program that the city had in place two council terms ago, which slowly lowered labour costs associated with the city as people moved on or retired by filling roles internally.
“I’d also like to do a project review, things like narrowing roadways that might be planned for the future, those are an extra expense that are possibly unnecessary,” said Hellman, adding that he recognizes the importance of maintenance and upgrades, but believes some of the cosmetic projects need further review.
Hand in hand with reducing these costs is attracting more economic development, he says.
“We’ve been stagnant for a long time. Economic development wise, we’ve got plenty of commercial land sitting here, not collecting any taxes at all,” said Hellman.
In addition to making utility costs more attractive to commercial investment, Hellman proposes a program in which a three-year freeze on off-site levies is put in place, to make the city once again comparable to Redcliff and Cypress County in terms of similar fees, and hopefully see businesses and industry more incentivized to choose Medicine Hat.
As it would take at least three to five years to have property tax pay off what the levy brings in, Hellman says if a freeze had been put in at the beginning of last term and had any new development, those taxes would have since paid for the freeze and now continue to pay into the tax base.
If elected, Hellman says he promises to stride forward to bring these priorities into reality to the best of his ability, to help build consensus on council and to intentionally seek out perspectives different than his own to continue to broaden his understanding of the city’s needs.
The latter is already underway, as he pursues door-knocking opportunities, events, opportunities to be present with other candidates and generally asking as many questions as he is answering, as the campaign, he hopes, is only the beginning.
