Medicine Hat Minute: Issue 275

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

📅 This Week In Medicine Hat: 📅

• City Council meets this evening at 6:30 pm, and one of the items on the agenda is an information-only presentation on the assumptions behind the 2027-2028 budget, delivered by Director of Finance Lola Barta. Administration is proposing total property tax increases of 4.65% in 2027 and 4.40% in 2028, combining a rate adjustment with assessment growth. Even with those increases the City projects a municipal budget gap of $7.5 million in 2027 and $6.8 million in 2028, a cumulative $14.3 million that would be covered from reserves. Administration also tested a 6.0% increase in each year, which would narrow the two-year gap to $10 million, and a pair of 3.9% and 3.65% increases, which would widen it to $16.6 million. Investment earnings are forecast to rise from $10.2 million in 2026 to $17 million in 2028, which Administration credits with holding the gap where it is. The budget series concludes on October 27th, and the recommended budget returns to Council on November 16th and December 7th.
  
  
• Also on tonight's agenda is a decision on the Riverside Corridor Enhancement Project, where Administration is recommending that Council drop both the road narrowing and the multi-use trail it spent two rounds of public engagement designing. The project covers about 2 kilometers of 3rd Street North in Riverside, where the pavement is in poor condition and the water and sanitary sewer mains are approaching the end of their service life. Staff now recommend rebuilding the road at its existing width, mostly 13.8 meters, with curb extensions at seven crossings, instead of the 11.9-meter design with a multi-use path that was shown to residents in May. Of the 696 people who answered the second-phase survey, 32% of 3rd Street residents and 28% of regular corridor users supported the narrower road width, and support for a path on 3rd Street ran between 24% and 38%. Administration acknowledges that the recommended option only partially aligns with the City's own Municipal Development Plan, Riverside Area Redevelopment Plan, and Cycling Master Plan. The work is budgeted at $7.45 million, with $5.851 million coming from the federal Canada Community-Building Fund and $1.45 million from the provincial Local Government Fiscal Framework. Construction is expected to start in spring 2027 and run over three seasons.
  
  
• The City of Medicine Hat says it still has no site for a replacement emergency shelter as another winter approaches. The City says it has nothing new to report on the search for a location to replace the Mustard Seed shelter on 8 Street SE, which has room for up to 30 adults a night. The search has run since 2024 and involves the City, the Province, the Mustard Seed, and the Medicine Hat Community Housing Society. The Mustard Seed withdrew a rezoning application for a City-owned property on Saamis Drive in September 2025 after concerns were raised that the location was not central enough, and no new site has come forward since. A $250,000 provincial grant added 20 beds last winter, lifting capacity to 50, but that funding ended April 1st and the shelter dropped back to 30 beds. Under the current arrangement the Province funds shelter services, the City handles zoning, and the Mustard Seed runs the site.
  
  
• Administration will ask Council at an upcoming meeting to adopt a formal policy for evaluating the City Manager's performance, which the City says is meant to add stability across election cycles and bring it into compliance with legislative requirements. The proposal follows the breakdown between the previous Council and former City Manager Ann Mitchell, which produced mayoral sanctions, a judicial review, and Mitchell's eventual termination. Joseph Hutter became permanent City Manager on September 15th after 8 months in the role on an interim basis. The policy would require documented expectations, measurable outcomes, and evidence-based assessment aligned with Council's strategic priorities, and the City says it is designed to keep reviews from turning on personal opinion or political considerations. An annual review would draw on an evaluation by a governance committee and individual evaluators, the previous year's objectives, and data from employee and community surveys, followed by a Council evaluation, a meeting with Administration on any salary adjustment, and a list of objectives for the following year. 
  
  
• The Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce and New West Public Affairs have launched a survey asking businesses how the loss of scheduled commercial flights at Medicine Hat Regional Airport has affected them. WestJet ended its Medicine Hat service on June 24th, leaving the airport without scheduled passenger service. The two groups are working with the City and the airport to make the case to the provincial and federal governments that regional air service is critical infrastructure rather than a convenience. They say federal infrastructure funding eligibility is tied to having scheduled passenger service, and that if flights are not restored by mid-2027 Medicine Hat could lose access to that funding, potentially shifting capital costs onto residents and businesses through taxes. The three-minute survey asks about higher travel costs, time spent driving, difficulty meeting clients and suppliers, recruitment and retention problems, delayed projects, and missed opportunities, and whether a business would help support the campaign. 

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