Medicine Hat Minute: Recycling Decision, Arguments Heard, and Public Meeting Cancelled

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

This Week In Medicine Hat:

• The public portion of today’s City Council meeting, originally scheduled for 6:30 pm, is cancelled due to a lack of agenda items, following a postponement of a public hearing on the off-site levy bylaw to September 3rd. The only remaining agenda item, the first reading of a bylaw, was deemed not urgent. A closed meeting to discuss a personnel matter will still take place at 3:45 pm. Councillor Shila Sharps, the Deputy Mayor, chose to cancel the meeting after seeing how short it would be. The cancellation follows recent court proceedings over sanctions imposed on Mayor Linnsie Clark. (More on that below!)
  
  
• There will be a meeting of the Corporate Services Committee on Thursday at 4:00 pm. No agenda is available for this meeting yet.
  
  
• City Council has until October 31st to decide on participating in Alberta's new Extended Producer Responsibility recycling program. This program, which would start in April 2025, shifts the costs of managing packaging waste from the City to the packaging businesses, covering paper, hazardous products, and single-use plastics. The Development and Infrastructure Committee supported participation in the program, but Council as a whole has yet to vote on it.

Last Week In Medicine Hat:

• Arguments were heard in the judicial review of the sanctions imposed on Mayor Linnsie Clark, with her legal team arguing that the penalties are excessively severe and could discourage municipal officials from fulfilling their oversight responsibilities. They maintain that Clark was addressing a valid concern regarding the City Manager’s restructuring process and that the imposed sanctions, including a significant salary cut and loss of duties, are disproportionate. The City’s lawyers, however, defended the sanctions as appropriate, asserting that Clark mishandled the situation and had other avenues to address her concerns. A decision from Alberta King’s Bench Justice Rosemary Nation is anticipated by September 30th.
  
  
• The City has launched its first trap-neuter-return (TNR) program, following approval of a joint proposal from the local SPCA and the Persian Dreams and Canine Themes Rescue Society. TNR programs humanely capture feral cats, spay or neuter them, and then return them to their original locations to control their population. This initiative stems from an update to the City's Responsible Animal Ownership Bylaw approved on August 21st, 2023, which allows humane societies to propose and manage such programs. The specific details of the program's timeline and locations will remain confidential for safety reasons.
  
  
• In Medicine Hat, the housing market has seen significant changes, with prices rising by 20.1% over the past year to an average of $360,692, according to the Alberta Real Estate Association. Semi-detached homes in the city surged by 50.5% to $434,814, surpassing the price of detached homes, which increased by 13.8% to $396,748. Row homes also saw a 36% rise, now averaging $247,640. Medicine Hat is experiencing a seller’s market with less than two months of housing supply available. Despite these increases, home prices remain below the provincial average of $493,549.

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