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Former Medicine Hat mayor Ted Clugston says he would play the role of a coach on council. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News
CITY HALL

Ex-Medicine Hat mayor Ted Clugston says successor has been a poor collaborator

Dec 31, 2024 | 9:46 AM

Former mayor Ted Clugston says his successor has done a poor job of being a collaborator as he reflected on a year of division at Medicine Hat’s city council.

“It’s not like party politics, where the premier or the prime minister can say, ‘we are going to do this’, and everybody has to get in line,” Clugston told CHAT News.

“In municipal politics, the mayor has to be the head coach,” he said.

Clugston said his approach as mayor would include meeting one-on-one with councillors in search of compromise.

“Obviously, that doesn’t happen with this council,” he added, without mentioning Mayor Linnsie Clark by name.

Clugston made the comments Monday while reflecting on the change since his time in office and the time he spent with the late alderman Les Pearson.

While he was generally on the other side of the aisle from Pearson as a conservative-leaning mayor, Clugston said he was still able to find ways to get council business done in collaboration.

A conflict between Mayor Linnsie Clark — who denied Clugston a third consecutive term — and chief administrator Ann Mitchell has dominated city hall headlines in the back half of this council’s term.

The division burst into the headlines when council levied sanctions against Clark in March. The mayor responded by bringing the city to court.

A judge freed Clark of the majority of the limitations placed on her but also agreed with council’s finding that she broke a code of conduct policy in her public debate with the city manager in August 2023.

Council in September requested and Alberta’s municipal affairs minister later granted a non-financial provincial audit of city hall known as a municipal inspection. The results of the inspection are expected before the next civic election.

Clugston said its a conflict that has been “brewing” since the current council was elected in 2021.

Despite this term of council facing pandemic-related economic pressures and historic inflation that has exploded the costs for equipment and materials, Clugston lamented the lack of capital projects and population decline he’s seen in Medicine Hat.

“Nothing has happened in this city in the last three years, and it’s sad. And we’re not growing population-wise,” he said.

“In a few months, we’ll have, hopefully, a new council with some new ideas,” he added, in reference to the municipal election scheduled for the fall of 2025.

Clugston said he gets asked often if he will give running for mayor another go, and his answer has remained the same since he was asked in a CHAT News interview in April.

“So far, I’ve been quite adamant that I’m not,” he said.

The nomination period opens Jan. 2.