Medicine Hat mayor observes regional unity in ‘state of the city’ address

Clark said that if you look across Alberta, you can see that division is a theme that many municipalities are experiencing.

This includes other levels of government, other municipalities, community groups and organizations.

She’s grateful to have a community that is engaging rather than apathetic.

She said that the city should be a facilitator of the community, and not a dictator.

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‘We should be a facilitator of our community, not a dictator,’ says Clark. Kevin Kyle/CHAT News

The community should be telling the city what they want, and the city should be a facilitator.

She said that despite the internal challenges the city and region has faced the past year, “we’ve made important progress in strengthening the city’s partnerships”.

“Having said that, I do find some of the recent activities of the city, and of course the public code of conduct, to be concerning,” she said.

“I voted ‘No’ on the public code of conduct, but not because I do not think that our employees deserve to be treated with kindness and respect,” she added.

“They absolutely do. But that has to be balanced against people’s right to participate in their government.”

An example of strengthened partnerships is the advancement of the Intermunicipal Development Plan.

This is in attempt to mitigate any conflicts, now or in the future in regards to land use that could develop with neighbouring municipalities.

Clark said that she’s been pushing for amendments to the plan well before she was on the intermunicipal committee.

She said that there was significant frustration and too much time taken for the process.

If an investor wants to come into the city, or use land partly in Cypress County or Redcliff, they would be using the city’s electric utility.

“We need to be able to very quickly rally together and make it happen, because sometimes those things are time sensitive,” she said.

“It’s not attractive to investment to have municipalities bickering amongst each other or fighting over scraps. We want to be in a position of readiness.”

Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright said that provincially, the government wants to make sure they’re out of the way of municipalities making a climate that is conducive to growth.

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Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright. Kevin Kyle/CHAT News

He said that they want to make sure that all of their municipalities are being timely to ensure they are growing how they should be.

“If we look at the success other communities are having within the province, Calgary and Edmonton have got record set growth for housing starts,” he said.

“I think it’s pretty indicative of ‘the path is clear’, and we need to ensure that municipalities aren’t adding complexity where complexity isn’t due.”

Clark said that she is proud that the city has had a good push towards partnership within the region this last year.

She said the city has not always been a great partner for other municipalities.

This is in regards to a regional economic development strategy that involves Cypress County, the County of 40 Mile, Redcliff, Bow Island and Foremost.

“Regional economic development is where we need to be, and if we’re not working together with our region or we’re trying to bully them into doing things or whatever else, it’s not going to be a successful relationship,” she said.

“I’m very grateful that they came to the table with an open mind, and we were able to problem solve together, and everyone was on board to do a regional economic development strategy,” she added.

“I consider that a pretty big win.”

Clark said that, as council changes, foundational skills are what the city needs for economic development — to make it not only successful, but stable in our region.

She says that she has not yet made the decision if she will be running for mayor at the next municipal election in October.

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by Jayk Sterkenburg

Medicine Hat mayor observes regional unity in ‘state of the city’ address

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