Medicine Hat Minute: Boardroom Renaming, Financial Disclosures, and Curling Centre Renovations

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

This Week In Medicine Hat:

• There will be a meeting of the Public Services Committee this afternoon at 3:45 pm. The Managing Director will provide a Service Area Update regarding Big Marble Go Centre Upgrades, Earth Day, and Entertainment & Event Season. The Committee will close the meeting to the public while they discuss next steps for Facilities for the Future (the new recreation plan).
  
  
• On Thursday, there will be a meeting of the Development and Infrastructure Committee at 1:00 pm, followed by a meeting of the Energy Land and Environment Committee at 4:00 pm. No agenda is available for either meeting yet.
  
  
• Renovations are more than halfway finished at the Medicine Hat Curling Centre. New ice mats have arrived and progress has been made on the upstairs bar. The new ice plant will be installed in August with the goal of having curlers back on the ice in October.

Last Week In Medicine Hat:

• Mayor Linnsie Clark's request for detailed expense reports from City Management was postponed to the next Council meeting due to time constraints. Despite Clark's attempt to extend the nearly five-hour meeting, it did not receive support from other Council members. Councillor Shila Sharps said she was too exhausted to consider another motion and that she was “losing the will to live”. Sharps later apologized after receiving backlash from the public for her statements.
  
  
• The City said that the second year of its collaboration with Strong Towns is yielding numerous small, yet cost-effective, improvements. A strategy of making "small bets" has enabled the City to test ideas using small-scale pilot projects. An example of one of these “small bets” was to list where public parking could be found on Google Maps. Now, the City is creating a handout for downtown business owners downtown that lists pricing and location of parking.
  
  
• The main committee boardroom at City Hall will be renamed the Ted Grimm Conference Room to honour Medicine Hat’s longest-serving mayor, who served from 1974 to 2001. Despite Grimm's general wish against having anything named after him, the informal motion was approved by Council. This renaming, suggested by the former City Clerk, was supported by Grimm's family. The change is expected to cost around $500 for a plaque and other signage updates, with a possible small ceremony to mark the occasion.

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