Medicine Hat city council defers decision on transportation plan for public hearing

Council voted 5-2 to approve holding a public hearing in the near future. Couns. Alison Van Dyke and Allison Knodel voted against the hearing.

Coun. Shila Sharps said there’s been a huge amount of backlash to the plan.

“We’ve had an immense amount of emails and contacts,” Sharps said.

Sharps said what she’s heard is that the public doesn’t necessarily agree or disagree with the transportation plan but instead wants to have a say.

Coun. Robert Dumanowski said the process was adequate.

“Sometimes on the public-facing side, it seems to take forever for city hall to get things going,” Dumanowski said.

“But it was very intentional and was meant to ensure that both the business community, directly and indirectly impacted by the changes and the public at-large…had the ability to give their feedback.”

Alison Van Dyke agreed with Dumanowski.

“This is not a plan specific to any project,” Van Dyke said.

“This is an overarching philosophy and principles around transportation in the city.”

Because it’s not a plan based on specific projects, Van Dyke argued it a public hearing wouldn’t result in many changes.

Pat Bohan said it would be difficult to “coalesce” information gathered from a public hearing.

Sharps said the feedback received so far on the plan was important but that clearly the public wants to be heard.

“We’re opening up the doors, it’s a bit of a Pandora’s box that needs to be heard,” Sharps said.

Sharps pointed out one of the biggest bits of feedback she saw on the Shape Your City page was that residents wanted to widen roads unlike what’s planned for Division Avenue South.

That, she said, showed it was important to listen to the public.

That received applause from the public gallery.

by Olivia Thorington

Medicine Hat city council defers decision on transportation plan for public hearing

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