Medicine Hat Minute: Overturned Sanctions, Inspection Request, and Solar Park Acquisition

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

This Week In Medicine Hat:

• Tomorrow, there will be a meeting of City Council. The meeting will begin with a closed session, at 3:45 pm, during which time Council will discuss the Community Survey 2024 Results and the Intermunicipal Development Plan Update, among other items. When the meeting opens up to the public, at 6:30 pm, Council will receive a presentation on the myMH Citizen Portal as well as an overview of the City’s role with support for Jasper. Also on the agenda is a discussion about the City providing $1.25 million in direct funding and $655,000 through “in kind” contributions in the event of a successful 2026 Memorial Cup bid by the Medicine Hat Tigers Hockey Club. There will also be a public hearing regarding the off-site levy and two development permit applications.
  
  
• The final piece of business on the agenda at City Council is a Notice of Motion by Councillor Andy McGrogan requesting an inspection by the Province of the Mayor, Administration, and Council. This comes as a judge overturned most of the sanctions placed on Mayor Linnsie Clark (more on this below!). Councillor McGrogan believes this can find gaps in the way City Hall operates. Does opening yet another chapter in this saga really help things move forward?
  
  
• The Energy, Land and Environment Committee will meet on Thursday at 4:00 pm. No agenda is available for this meeting yet.

Last Week In Medicine Hat:

• A Calgary judge overturned several sanctions imposed on Mayor Linnsie Clark by City Council, restoring her full salary and official duties. The judge said that Councillors “appear to have no sense of proportionality in crafting sanctions and have imposed sanctions that have no rational connection with the breach of the code”, though Clark was found to have breached the Code of Conduct by mistreating the City Manager. Clark's powers and salary were reinstated, but she must issue an apology to the City Manager.
  
  
• The City announced plans to acquire the Saamis Solar Park project, which will be the largest urban solar array in Canada, from private developer DP Energy. The City is seeking regulatory approval for the purchase to boost its clean energy capacity and align with net-zero goals. The plan will be discussed further in Council meetings this fall. The City says the project will "contribute to our bottom line in a positive way," but if that's the case, one might question why the current owner is selling it. It feels like another instance of politicians gambling with taxpayer money.
  
  
• The Public Services Committee approved a new 'Non-Profit Capital Grant' program designed to streamline and formalize the City’s process for handling funding requests from non-profits and social service organizations. The proposed system requires organizations to submit an intake application, a detailed business case, and historical financial statements for review. City staff will evaluate applications using a scoring matrix before presenting the approved requests to Council for final approval. The program aims to ensure a fair and predictable funding process by incorporating best practices from other municipalities. If adopted by Council as a whole, the new application process could be implemented by the second quarter of 2025.

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