Fode Wants City Traffic to “Flow Not Slow.”

Ron Fode has experience across a wide spectrum from being a field manager, small-business owner and involvement in unions, a background which will serve Medicine Hat well if he’s elected a city councillor.

As for the first order business if elected, “I’d love to get that budget fixed,” he said.

Rises in the cost of city operations are likely going to be exacerbated by US tariffs, said Fode, making it harder for the municipality.

“But I think if we get together and stop spending so much money – we have to worry about what is our need compared to what is our want,” he said.

Exploring incentives to attract businesses to the city is an idea he supports, noting the city has lost its local grain and flour mills along with the good-paying jobs that went with those operations.

Fode highlighted the city is at the junction of two major highways with the Trans-Canada and Crowsnest which should be attractive for companies which require transportation options. And keeping the existing businesses the city does have should be a priority.

“Are taxes are getting so high. . .We have to be able to slow that down,” he said. “They are coming up so high, some of them aren’t going to be able to stay here.”

When it comes to the city-owned and operated utilities, “I’d like to keep it ours,” said Fode. “I don’t want to go to a third party trying to run things.”

The city government currently has a talent base to draw on regarding knowing how to operate Medicine Hat’s utilities and a council overseeing them, he said. With the federal government bringing in electric vehicle mandates, it will likely continue to drive up the price.

When it comes to traffic in the Hat, Fode has liked some initiatives like adding a turn lane to the bottom of Dunmore Road turning onto Allowance Avenue but added that’s not always the case with other projects.

“We have no flow, we just want to go slow. I think we have to reverse that,” he said, citing the intersection of Strachan Road and 13th Ave. as a bottleneck.

Additionally, Fode said he’d like the city to consider a road which would run from the bottom of Scholten Hill to Industrial Ave. (Hwy.  41a).

“We’d save ourselves five sets of lights and a school zone not having to drive though,” Fode said of the idea.

There is a lack of trust with city hall currently, something Fode says is likely going to continue.

“The citizens of Medicine Hat are going to be very scared to trust anyone anymore. The new people coming in, they are going to have a hard time. They are likely going to have to do something very fast to gain the trust again of our citizens,” he said.

Fode stressed council needs to be a team to come with solutions to the city’s problems and stressed he has a record of working with different people.

“I try to keep my glass half full, not half empty,” he said.