Medicine Hat Minute: Assessment Notices, Inventory Levels, and a School Materials Procedure

Medicine Hat Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Medicine Hat politics

This Week In Medicine Hat:

• This afternoon, at 3:45 pm, there will be a meeting of City Council. As usual, the meeting begins with a closed session. During that session, Council will discuss a Legal Proceedings Update and an Information Request. Once the meeting opens up to the public, there will be a Public Hearing to discuss rezoning 19 Stober Bay SE to a Mixed Use District. Council will give First Reading to a Code of Conduct bylaw, and also consider amending the Procedure Bylaw to permit the Agenda Review Committee to cancel or postpone a Closed Meeting, depending on the volume of agenda items.
  
  
• The Development and Infrastructure Committee will meet on Thursday at 1:00 pm. No agenda is available for this meeting yet. Later in the day, at 4:00 pm, there will be a meeting of the Energy, Land and Environment Committee. No agenda is available for this meeting yet either.
  
  
• Property assessment notices are being delivered to Hatters, well in advance of the June deadline, so that property owners can review and discuss concerns with the City's assessment department. Residents facing a significant tax increase, specifically a 25% or more assessment value hike, will receive additional communication, including a letter or a phone call from the assessment department to discuss reassessment reasons.

Last Week In Medicine Hat:

• The newly tabled Alberta provincial budget includes funds to complete the twinning of Highway 3 from Taber to Burdett over the next three years. It also highlights plans to renovate the older span of the Trans-Canada Bridge over the South Saskatchewan River, which remains in the design phase, and to widen 20 kilometers of Highway 41 around Elkwater. The Local Government Fiscal Framework, replacing the Municipal Sustainability Initiative, will provide $724 million this year and $820 million in 2025-26 for infrastructure grants to municipalities across the province, with the City of Medicine Hat's share expected to be around $8.2 million this year.
  
  
• After years of severe vehicle shortages, Medicine Hat dealerships said they are experiencing a turnaround. Their lots are becoming full again, leading to a stabilization in vehicle prices. The chip shortage, which previously limited vehicle options, is diminishing, and manufacturers are better stabilizing the supply chain. Meanwhile, the Medicine Hat real estate market is experiencing its lowest inventory levels since 2002, resulting in a robust market for sellers and increased pressure for buyers. Multiple offers and bidding wars, especially in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, have become common due to limited buying options. The low vacancy rate in the city is leading to a higher demand for rental properties too.
  
  
• The Medicine Hat Public School Division has announced that it will develop a system-wide procedure to ensure that resources and materials shared at public schools align with the Division's values. Organizations attending school division events, like resource fairs, must provide required information, including the overall message and materials preview, seven working days before the event. The procedure covers topics such as human sexuality, banned substances, and religious instruction. This initiative comes in response to a controversy in December when pamphlets on safer drug use, distributed by SafeLink Alberta, were quickly pulled from a wellness fair at Medicine Hat High School. Our friends at the Alberta Parents’ Union have been advocating for the disclosure of supplementary materials and will have some more thoughts to share on this in the coming weeks!

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