Medicine Hat Minute: Champions Centre, Urban Hens, and Queen Elizabeth Dies

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

This Week In Medicine Hat:

• This morning, there will be a meeting of the Public Services Committee at 8:00 am. On the agenda is the Managing Director’s Service Area Update. The Committee will hear about the Together Again Festival, shelter services, a Big Marble Go Centre playground update, and the Community Well-Being Plan, among other topics.
  
  
• On Wednesday, at 2:30 pm, the Municipal Planning Commission will meet to discuss a bylaw that would redesignate 1752 10 Avenue SW from Airport District to General Industrial District. Also on Wednesday, at 5:00 pm, there will be a meeting of the Council Employee Committee which will be held entirely in-camera.
  
  
• The Energy and Infrastructure Committee will meet on Thursday at 3:30 pm. No agenda is available for this meeting yet.

Last Week In Medicine Hat:

• City Council decided not to revisit the urban hen debate, meaning that Hatters will still not be able to raise chickens in their backyards. Councillors voted 5-4 against updating information presented in 2014 when a bylaw was proposed that would have allowed 100 residents to keep egg-laying hens in the city. Reasons for opposition included the potentially small number of people who might take part, and the fact that there are other, more important projects requiring staff resources. Red Deer and Calgary, along with several other municipalities, have urban hen programs.
  
  
• City Council discussed purchasing the Champions Centre, the N. Railway Street site that the Mustard Seed had intended to renovate and operate shelter services from. The details of the discussion have not been made public and no formal action resulted from the in-camera session. The Mustard Seed rescinded their application in July. Facing the potential of a winter without shelter services, City administration told the Public Services Committee the issue was a high priority.
  
  
• Following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the flags at City of Medicine Hat buildings were lowered to half mast. Portraits of the monarch in City buildings were draped in black and a book of condolences was placed in City Hall, as well as in the Provincial Building, for Hatters to provide handwritten messages that will be sent to Buckingham Palace.

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