Stimulating Growth, Reducing Costs a Priority for Hellman

As a local business owner and member of several community boards, Chris Hellman says he has the experience to represent Hatters as a Medicine Hat city councillor.

“I want to hear perspectives from Hatters,” said Hellman regarding his campaign as well as after it if elected.

Hellman’s community board experience, stretching back over the past 15 years, would be something he says he’ll bring with him to build a team that would follow governance best practices.

“I think everybody has the citizens’ best interest at heart but it’s how we arrive at compromise and get there which is up to a team and that’s what I’d want to be a part of,” he said.

As for addressing the city’s affordability crisis, Hellman said he’d like to see that achieved, specifically, by tackling property taxes and utility costs.

“I’d like to see the end of the MCAF – the municipal consent and access fee. It’s a fee charged by our utilities to access infrastructure and land that is owned by the City of Medicine Hat, therefore, it’s owned by the property taxpayer,” he said. “I see that as a double dip.”

He said neither Cypress County nor Redcliff pay the MCAF for the city-owned utility. Additionally, he’d like to see a review of how the city calculates municipal utility bills.

“I’d like to see a utility rate for electricity set at whatever the provincial average is, at any given time, less a percentage,” said Hellman.

He’d also like to see a return of the Financially Fit program instituted by the prior council to the current one.

“That was basically scaling back the City of Medicine Hat labour force slowly and through attrition,” said Hellman. “That’s one way to get costs under control.”

As well, dealing with the basics of repairing city infrastructure should be the primary goal rather than cosmetic enhancements such as narrowing roadways.

“I would look at stuff like that and say what do we need to do now, what do we need to do later and what don’t we need to do at all,” said Hellman regarding one way he’d work to reduce property tax.

When it comes to economic development, he said he’d like to stimulate commercial growth and increase the tax base by reducing off-site levies.

In addition to neighbouring municipalities not having the MCAF, they also pay less for off-site levies, said Hellman, which puts the city at a disadvantage.

He said he’d like to see a standardization of such charges across the tri-municipal region.     

“If we’re in an alliance, a partnership, we shouldn’t be competing directly with each other,” said Hellman.

He added he’d like to see off-site levies set at zero percent for the first three years of the next council in an effort to boost commercial development and build up the tax base.

“If we had started with a plan like that four years ago when this council’s term started, and we had any new development early in that term, those off-site levies would now be covered by that property tax,” said Hellman. “And all that property tax would be paid into the city’s coffers in perpetuity.”

The public’s perception of transparency at city hall should be noted and council should be doing as much of its work as possible in the open, he said, but there is also a need for councillors to engage with the public when they reach out.

For his part, Hellman wants to make sure he’s transparent when it comes to not supporting the narrowing of Kingsway or Third Street North if elected. And there needs to be clear communications between council and the city manager so elected officials can respond to concerns.