No shortage of business at upcoming council meeting

Mayor Linnsie Clark addresses supporters and media during a press conference in front of city hall this spring following sanctions being placed on her by councillors on March 21, 2024.

Councillors will be holding its first full meeting in six weeks on Tuesday after months of high drama at city hall.

And the public theatre could drag well into next year.

After postponing the off-site levy hearings which council had voted a month earlier to hold in August and citing not enough business to discuss, councillors didn’t hold a regular meeting following their two-week break that began at the end of July.

Lack of topics to discuss doesn’t appear to be an issue for the upcoming regular council meeting.

In a notice of motion from Coun. Andy McGrogan submitted Wednesday, he’ll be asking council to bring in the province to review council’s and administration’s practises, citing the turmoil over the past year. But the move could see the bedlam continue as provincial investigations take months to complete.

“After multiple attempts to mediate the situation, including two formal meetings, one involving an outside municipal expert and another involving a government minister, no positive outcome has come to fruition,” reads McGrogan’s resolution. “Perhaps these meetings have further divided the already fractured relationships.”

Despite the last-minute cancellation of the off-site levy public hearings for unknown reasons, that item of business is anticipated to go forward Tuesday.

It will also be the first meeting since the judicial review decision where it is anticipated Mayor Linnsie Clark will once again take chair for the first time since March when sanctions placed on her by fellow councillors.

While four of the sanctions were revoked in that decision and another sent back to council to allow the mayor to interact with staff, it will retain buffering measures between Clark and city manager Ann Mitchell. The council meeting will be the first since the review decision which upheld council’s sanction to issue a public apology.

Tuesday will also be the first meeting since city administration announced its intention to purchase of the Saamis Solar Park. Though, a timeline when that will come forward is unclear but it doesn’t appear on the current agenda.

The city’s managing director of energy, Rochelle Pancoast, stated in a late-August release, “any decision on investing in new generation assets is subject to council approval. 

“Today, we are taking steps to acquire the opportunity, and all the associated approvals and engineering, that have taken place thus far.” 

The solar park, initially advanced by DP Energy which received regulatory approval in July to proceed, has a nameplate capacity of 325 megawatts of electricity. The construction could start as soon as 2025.

Tuesday’s council meeting will also be the first in a six-week period marked by anonymous leaks from either senior administrators and, or councillors regarding in-camera meetings. Those anonymous leaks related to personnel issues, amongst others, and came despite an April. 1 pledge by councillors not to reveal non-public internal city communications.

Citing its own bylaws and the provincial legislation, councillors stated such statues, “require us to keep in confidence matters discussed during closed sessions of council.”. But that was followed by numerous leaks to media doing the opposite.  

The release went on to state that the councillors were bound, “to uphold that duty, we are unable to respond to or correct any misstatements relating to those issues.”

The self-imposed dam of information burst open within days of the Aug. 10 judicial review with councillors and the mayor unleashing a deluge of statements and comments.

Other items of business at Tuesday’s meeting will include closed-door discussions regarding the results of this spring’s municipal survey and Atlantis Research Labs seeking tax cancellation.

The latter item will also be up for debate during the open portion of the meeting as the company is asking the city to cancel its $250,000 tax bill.

Also up for debate is a nearly $2 million ask from the Medicine Hat Tigers to host the 2026 Memorial Cup contingent on being awarded the tournament. Six other teams are expected to bid for the tournament.

Councillors will also be given a presentation on whether the city should apply to a federally backed mortgage program to stimulate homebuilding. However, the briefing notes in the agenda state the city’s growth over the last several years has been less than one percent.

Tuesday council meeting will take place at 6:30 pm at city hall.