Medicine Hat Minute: Issue 266

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

📅 This Week In Medicine Hat: 📅

• Medicine Hat City Council will meet today at 2:00 pm, but the entire meeting is a closed session with no public portion. The agenda shows Council moving into confidential discussions on the pathway to financial sustainability for the 2027-2028 budget, the City's sustaining capital plan, operating and capital strategic initiatives, a shelter discussion, a city facilities update, and an item regarding the Medicine Hat Public Library. There is no public Council meeting this week. The next regular meeting with a public agenda is scheduled for August 17th.
  
  
• The City has released a corrected salary disclosure report showing that the City Manager position is the highest-paid job at City Hall, with a salary range mid-point of $370,626 a year. The role remains officially unfilled and is being held on an interim basis by Joseph Hutter, following the dismissal of former City Manager Ann Mitchell in 2025. The City first posted the annual disclosure earlier this month, but the version covering management and non-union professional roles contained an error, prompting the corrected report issued on Monday. It shows three managing director positions each paying more than $200,000 a year. The full list of salary disclosures is posted on the City's website.
  
  
• City officials and regional stakeholders are pressing to restore passenger air service after WestJet ended its Medicine Hat flights in late June. The Development and Infrastructure Committee heard on Thursday that the Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce recently convened a meeting of stakeholders working to attract a replacement carrier, and that the city has begun working with an outside advocacy organization on the effort. The City says it looks forward to supporting the Chamber's initiative to regain air service. WestJet's final flight to Calgary departed on June 24th after the airline cut service in southern Alberta as a cost-saving measure, and the City says it has since submitted more than 20 expressions of interest to other airlines without success. The Medicine Hat Regional Airport contributes about $16 million a year to the city's GDP and supports 135 jobs, and recorded a 30% year-over-year jump to 37,000 total air traffic movements last year.
  
  
• The City has relocated its portable skate ramp pilot project indoors to the Kinplex 2 Arena after noise complaints from neighbours prompted it to pause the program last month. The ramps were first installed in early June at the outdoor East Glen Rink to improve access to skateboarding on the city's east side, but the City removed them on June 19th after nearby residents reported excessive noise. Crews have since applied spray foam insulation to the underside of the larger ramps to dampen the sound. The indoor ramps are available until August 20th, though they will be unavailable from Monday to Sunday while the arena hosts the Medicine Hat Stampede. The City says it will keep gathering resident feedback on the pilot.
  
  
• The Medicine Hat Women's Shelter Society and the federal government marked the completion of an expansion of the Phoenix Safe House emergency shelter, supported by a $7.6 million federal investment from the Affordable Housing Fund. Liberal member of parliament for Winnipeg South Terry Duguid was in Medicine Hat on Tuesday for the announcement, joined by Councillor Dan Reynish on behalf of the City. The funding, granted in 2023 with renovations completed last year, added five bedrooms to raise the shelter's capacity to 30 clients, and paid for private bathrooms in every unit and a relocated daycare. Part of the money was a non-repayable grant and the rest a loan, which the society is repaying through a fundraising campaign that has cut the outstanding balance from $6.5 million to $1.2 million. The Society's Executive Director says about $500,000 of its annual fundraising already goes toward operations, and credits provincial and municipal donations with helping the repayment.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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