Medicine Hat Minute: Tourism Boost, Firefighter Documentary, and Electronic Fare System

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

This Week In Medicine Hat:

• There will be a Regular Meeting of City Council on Tuesday. A closed session begins at 3:45 pm with the meeting opening up to the public at 6:30 pm. Plenty of interesting items are on the agenda for the closed session, including a report on adjustments to taxi rates, a Monarch Theatre update, an offer by the City to purchase the Champion Centre, and a discussion regarding the Intermunicipal Coordinator position. The public portion of the agenda includes the Coulee Ridge Outline Plan and a Notice of Motion to direct Administration to review all Police Commission policies.
  
  
• On Thursday, at 11:00 am, there will be a meeting of the Corporate Services Committee. The only item on the public portion of the agenda involves an update to the City's procurement policy. The rest of the agenda will be discussed in-camera.
  
  
• Medicine Hat firefighters will be featured on Germany’s Discovery Channel. An eight-part documentary called “Alberta Alert” will be filmed in the city and aims to showcase the everyday lives of North American firefighters. Senior Medicine Hat firefighter Rene Grigat, a German expat, will be the host of the series.

Last Week In Medicine Hat:

• Medicine Hat Transit announced a new, electronic fare system. Reloadable cards, called MH Go! passes, can be tapped or scanned on the bus to pay for your ride. They will be available wherever paper passes are sold and can be loaded online or in person. Federal grant money helped to pay for the new technology, which will be rolled out between now and mid-October. Cash payments will still be accepted and there will be a transitional period in which the old system and new will be operational alongside one another to ensure a seamless experience for riders.
  
  
• A radio tower was demolished at Canadian Forces Base Suffield to the benefit of the Medicine Hat Women’s Shelter Society. There were 90 50/50 tickets sold - one for each meter of the tower - and the winner was determined by virtually segmenting the land around the tower and awarding the cash to the person who held the ticket assigned to the segment where the tower fell. The site will be repurposed, and the shelter will be able to help more Hatters. Sounds like a win on multiple fronts!
  
  
• By all metrics available so far, the tourism industry in Medicine Hat had a great summer. Demand for the printed Experience Medicine Hat guide, as well as visits to its online home, increased. The Executive Director of Tourism Medicine Hat said that, while Travel Alberta pegged 2024 as the year when the industry will get back to 2019 numbers, the suspicion is that Medicine Hat is ahead of that curve.

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