Residents concerned with high power bills packed a public hearing on introducing an interim electricity rate on Oct. 16, 2023. Council in 2023 also purchased the Medicine Hat Curling Club building, undertook the beginning of talks with Strong Towns urban planning group and agreed to work on an environment framework.--News File Photo
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Power bills topped the issues tackled by City Hall in 2023 and a larger review of the utility business may be the biggest issue emerging in 2024, but the last 12 months featured several major issues and long debates on a variety of issues.
Power
City council discussed relief options and the potential for skyrocketing power bills in January and July, but had to call a special meeting in late August to address widespread complaints about ballooning costs to consumers.
That hurried along a new power rate, $33 million in credits and a request for a full business practice review of the city’s electrical utility business that is due in 2024.
Even after extending 2022 rates to mid-year and then discounting local power in the fall, export sales to the provincial power market are expected to provide a $134-million dividend to municipal reserves.
While the Alberta power market is poised to settle down in 2024, city budgeters are still predicting large profits in the range of $80 million for the next year.
Meanwhile, a group critical of council’s handling of the issue is formalizing an association to further push for lower rates and tax reductions in 2024.
Budget
After an expected tax increase and more investment revenue from reserve accounts in 2024, finance officials expect to balance the city’s operating budget in the next two-year budget. That document will be presented late next year, but will likely not require direct withdrawals from reserves – a first after an eight-year process to become “financially fit” and make up for the loss of natural gas production profits in the city budget.
Deer
A new urban wildlife management plan debated in the spring aimed to discourage feeding the urban deer population in the city.
New fines could be levied for Hatters who actively attract wildlife, including leaving meat out or failing to clean up around front yard fruit trees.
As well, front yard bird feeders should be placed higher than six feet.
Administrators say the bylaw will be applied with discretion
Debate, debate, debate
Similarly, council sent back to committee a package of bylaw changes required for a “trap, neuter, release” program for feral cats to proceed.
It was eventually passed and local animal welfare agencies are now arranging a program to target areas where most of the city’s estimated 4,200 stray cats are located.
Downtown
washrooms
Plans to build a public washroom at the Towne Square site were put on hold as the number and availability of facilities at other public buildings is being studied.
Council voted to spent $100,000 to add 24-hour security at the transit terminal washrooms.
A summit of social service agencies got to work on a “community wellness” plan that will continue into next year.
Strong Towns
Consultants completed the first of a two-year engagement in the city working with staff and the community on ideas to revitalize the city’s economy and add to the tax base. Some work will appear publicly as the planned update to the land-use bylaw is unveiled in the coming year.
Top brass
City manager Ann Mitchell took over the job in February arriving from the same position in Lethbridge County.
The first full-time permanent in Medicine Hat in more than a year, Mitchell moved to fill a vacant position in the Invest Medicine Hat office in the spring and then adjusted some changes in a two-year-old corporate reorganization.
Late year priorities that will flow over to 2024 include a look at derelict and unsightly properties in the city.
Energy division head Brad Maynes left the city for the private sector in the late spring and was replaced by Rochelle Pancoast, who had served as head of the city’s strategic analysis office.
Maynes, who joined the city in 2015 as general manager of the gas production unit, told the News that tackling looming well liability and shutting down money-losing wells was his key accomplishment. The department that recorded a $35-million loss in 2015, made a $14-million profit during a price run in 2022 with fewer wells.
Pancoast will lead the division as it develops a “clean energy strategy” – seen as pivotal – as well as a larger power business review in the year ahead.
Council tension
An updated procedure bylaw that Mayor Linnsie Clark said was a key legislative priority resulted in her office being stripped of most powers available under an updated Municipal Government Act.
Councillors made the amendments in July that would give them final say over committee assignments, previously made by the mayor, and provided more authority to committee heads.
Their passage in August coincided with a tense exchange between Clark and city manager Mitchell about how reorganization of positions across several departments was handled. That is subject to a code of conduct complaint, the contents and process for which hasn’t been publicly stated.
