By Brian Konrad

$58.7 million borrowing bylaws on council agenda tonight

Feb 21, 2017 | 7:05 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB –  Medicine Hat city councillors will be asked to pass borrowing bylaws tonight that total 58.7 million dollars.  The money will be used to pay for a variety of things, mostly replacement of storm and sanitary sewers and improvements to a couple of sewage lift stations.  There’s also cash needed for water main upgrades in the downtown core and along South Railway street.  Some of the borrowed money will also go for equipment replacement and rehabilitation at the water treatment plant.   The work would be spread over the next two years. 

Under provincial regulations, the city has a debt limit of 671.2 million dollars.  The current debt is listed as 304 million dollars, or just over 45 per cent of it’s limit. The city has already approved 123.5 million dollars in borrowing bylaws that have not been drawn.  If that amount was added, the city would owe 427.5 million dollars, or 63.7 per cent of it’s debt limit.
 
There will also be a presentation from a group that wants permission to put up a special monument on the hill above the Third Street n.w. overpass on the Trans Canada highway, to mark the 100th anniversary of two key battles in the First World War and of the men and women from this area who served in the war.