Medicine Hat Minute: Council Returns, Secret Meetings, and Carbon Capture Exploration

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

This Week In Medicine Hat:

• It looks like Council is back from summer vacation as they have a reasonably busy week ahead, with three meetings scheduled, starting with a meeting of the Public Services Committee at 12:15 pm today - to be held mostly in secret.
  
  
• On Tuesday, there will be a meeting of the Corporate Services Committee at 12:30 pm which (you guessed it) will start in secret. Secret meetings seem to have become the new normal since the whole Invest Medicine Hat fiasco. If there was ever a time for Council to be transparent and accountable, one would think it would be now!
  
  
• On Wednesday, there will be a meeting of the Municipal Planning Commission at 2:30 pm. At this meeting, Council will decide whether or not to approve a building permit which would see an expansion of the greenhouse located at 1536 Bridge St SE in the River Flats neighbourhood.

Last Week In Medicine Hat:

• As active COVID-19 cases continue to climb in Medicine Hat, the City has launched a vaccination campaign asking Hatters aged 20-40 to get the jab in order to prevent the recent uptick in active COVID-19 cases. Given the province's updated restrictions around COVID-19, it will be interesting to see if the City will try to implement a municipal mask bylaw if cases continue to trend upwards.
  
  
• You might have thought the City would have learned from their failed $13 million solar power disaster. Nope. On top of their hydrogen investment last week, Invest Medicine Has is also exploring the viability of carbon capture opportunities. Carbon capture projects may or may not be the future, but either way, why should taxpayer money be used on these risky bets? Leave it to the free market.
  
  
• Pop-up Parks announced they will end the month of August with a bang. The Connecting Community initiative already held two events in the City this summer and has its eyes set on the Medicine Hat Recreation Experience on August 28th at Echo Dale Park.

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