Medicine Hat Minute: Issue 265

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

📅 This Week In Medicine Hat: 📅

• The Public Services Committee will meet today at 2:00 pm. Committee members will hear the 2025 annual reports from the Working Group for Accessibility and Inclusion and the Heritage Resources Working Group, with representatives from both groups attending to present their work. The Committee will also receive the latest minutes from the Community Vibrancy Advisory Board and a verbal update from the Acting Managing Director on service area activities. The meeting will end with a closed session regarding strategic goals.
  
  
• A motion by Councillor Bill Cocks asking City Council to write to Premier Danielle Smith and provincial ministers opposing new coal mining in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains died without reaching debate, after no other Councillor would second it. The motion, first raised last month, sought the same action taken by 28 other Alberta municipalities, including Lethbridge, Calgary, and Edmonton, and centred on potential impacts to the region's fresh water supply. Cocks said he was disappointed and surprised, and suggested colleagues avoided a public vote for fear of "offending" local MLAs, noting that both Premier Smith and Minister Justin Wright represent the area. Councillor Stuart Young was the only member to address media afterward, saying Councillors care deeply about water and pointing to Council's recent approval of more than $245,000 for a 25-year water management strategy. A resident who attended said the refusal to even debate the issue showed "a real lack of courage".
  
  
• City Council voted unanimously to adopt the City's 2027-2030 Strategic Plan, a 13-page document that will guide policymaking around four priorities: fiscal responsibility, economic growth through asset expansion, reliable services, and stronger community connections. The plan names fiscal responsibility as the first priority, calling for managing public resources while reducing reliance on city savings, setting service levels and costs across every department, and steering budget spending toward high-impact initiatives while cutting non-critical areas. Stated goals for Council's term include keeping property taxes down while increasing service levels, exploring priority-based budgeting, and developing an artificial intelligence and technology governance framework. Mayor Linnsie Clark said the city's strengths in energy, aerospace, defence, and low-cost utilities are real, but so are challenges including fiscal pressure and rising service expectations, which the plan aims to confront directly. The full plan is posted on the City's website.
  
  
• Council voted unanimously to remove a reserved designation from a portion of City land, clearing the way for the Department of National Defence to purchase two parcels where the Patterson Armoury sits. National Defence has leased the parcels at 120 Cuyler Road and adjacent buildings along Corbitt Way since 1977 and approached the City earlier this year with a letter of interest to buy. Randi Buckner, the City's Manager of Land and Real Estate, described the change as an administrative exercise to create a new titled parcel so the sale can proceed. Preparation of legal surveys and subdivision plans by a registered Alberta land surveyor will now begin, with costs ultimately funded by National Defence under a purchase and sales agreement. According to City documents, the sale will not affect adjacent private properties or reduce public space, and the land already sits within the armoury's fenced area.
  
  
• Council also voted unanimously to donate an unused property at 301 Spencer Street SE to the Miywasin Friendship Centre to develop a seniors housing project of 16 to 20 units for Indigenous Elders. To keep the land and real estate department's budget balanced, Council also approved transferring the property's $412,000 market value from capital reserves. City staff said the oddly shaped parcel, acquired in 1979, would be difficult to develop otherwise, and noted the City has spent more than $60,000 servicing the unused land over the years. The construction itself is intended to be funded through provincial and federal grants, but the friendship centre needs the land in its name to secure that funding, and it will have until 2028 to begin construction. Councillor Stuart Young called it a community working together, while Mayor Linnsie Clark said she was glad to again support affordable housing. The City will include an option to reclaim the property if it is not developed within the required two-year window.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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