Several items pushed to future meetings during Medicine Hat council meeting

“We reviewed some technical drawings and had a conversation regarding the proposed project,” Hutter said.

“The Medicine Hat Hat Exhibition & Stampede representatives took this conversation back to their board and have made the decision to request that this request be put on hold for the time being,” he added.

“It will be, I would imagine, several months before they would like to return, but there was no particular date given on when they expect to return.”

Councillor McGrogan said that he did speak to the organizations general manager Ron Edwards on Tuesday morning.

“I think what they want to do is a little bit more rigor around their economic planning and want to present that when they come back the next time,” McGrogan said.

“I don’t know how long that will take, but I can confirm that he does want some time to do it properly.”

This pushes back a decision on a city grant of up to almost $15.9 million to support the project.

The deal listed during the Aug. 18 meeting of council had the city coming up with 60 per cent of funding contingent on the province providing 40 per cent of the overall costs, and the stampede group coming up with the remaining 10 per cent.

Transportation Master Plan

The Transportation Master Plan, Active Transportation Plan and Transportation Safety plan were all postponed to come back to council in the first quarter of 2026 as was recommended by city staff prior to the meeting.

The city’s acting director of municipal works Sandeep Pareek presented to council.

Before that took place the managing director of development and infrastructure with the city Pat Bohan said that despite nearly two years of extensive public engagement, it’s obvious that was not enough.

“On July 7, in addition to comments on the master plan and related strategies, we heard several important issues raised by the community that were not directly related to those strategies, and that included not feeling heard by staff and council. There were concerns about the speed of change,” Bohan said.

“There was insufficient reasoning provided for the change or modification. We didn’t speak enough as to the why we were bringing things forward. There’s feelings that there was inadequate public input during the design and project construction phases, and there were deep concerns about roadway width that would be narrowed or could be narrowed before meaningful public input was gathered,” he added.

“Given that public feedback, we have more work to do in capturing a broader range of public interest, and by adopting this motion, we’ll take those steps necessary over the next few months to try and rectify that.”

Pareek said that on July 7 at the hearing, they heard from 29 speakers, and prior to the hearing, received 113 written submissions for the Transportation Master Plan (TMP).

“City staff compiled the comments and the concerns and drafted a what we heard report. Since many of the remarks were similar, the report was divided into themes,” Pareek said.

“Following the what we heard report, we developed a public hearing summary which outlined the themes and how some of the comments would be addressed by the TMP and how TMP might be amended,” he added.

“Both of these reports will be available on the project website this coming week.”

Pareek said the most important feedback was that people were not feeling listened to by the staff or council.

“Many submissions and presentation focused on design of upcoming projects such as Third Street and Riverside, or future projects such as Kingsway Avenue,” Pareek said.

“Concerns were raised that corridor design would impend safe traffic movement and parking, create challenges for truck routes, emergency vehicle and negative impact local businesses. There were also concerns about project costs and whether funds could be better spent elsewhere,” he added.

“There were questions about active transportation infrastructure and design features such as the red stone concrete, number and width of driving lane and inclusion of roundabouts.”

Going forward Pareek said for larger projects involving corridor level upgrade, the city will follow a project delivery process that includes developing the project goals and scope.

“Creating conceptual design options, presenting these conceptual designs along with rational for the project to the community member, businesses, stakeholder and institutions for feedback,” Pareek said.

“The engagement could be a combination of one-to-one meetings, letter drop-off, safety or city event or dedicated project website and open houses followed by reviewing feedback from the initial engagement which may involve or this may involve an iterative process with specific stakeholder or businesses to flesh out any aspect of the conceptual design,” he added.

“After finalizing the conceptual design, the detailed design for the project will be developed that meets the community need while addressing the project’s main objectives.”

The final design would then be presented, providing information about construction schedule and timelines at an open house.

Another topic of discussion during the presentation included traffic calming measures.

“Many residents raised concerns about the bump outs or curb extensions as traffic calming measure stating that emergency vehicles, buses or large trucks or trailers would struggle to make turns,” Pareek said.

“Some participants suggested that turns are possible with driver training or practice while others felt they were not feasible. Regardless, based on the oral presentation and written submissions, bump outs were not widely accepted,” he added.

“There was also mixed views on many roundabouts. Some opposed them while others supported them if traffic volumes warranted their use.”

Regional foods and organics waste

A regional approach to composting was presented to Medicine Hat city council by Redcliff mayor Dwight Kilpatrick.

He explained that at the Redcliff and Cypress County landfill they have been doing some composting, with an area set up and licenced to do up to 20,000 tons of composting.

“But technically, because we’re very small, on a good year, we run about 5,000 ton. So we’re very underutilized,” Kilpatrick said.

“With that underutilization, we come across all kinds of infancy problems in that every time you look at a piece of equipment for shredding or chipping or screening, and they’re all million-dollar plus pieces of equipment, we struggle,” he added.

“So we contract out wood chipping when we have a great big pile. We bring people in. When we’re doing our finished screening, we contract out somebody to come in and screen.”

Kilpatrick said that they have a company named Ambipar that leases a site at the landfill operating there since 2011.

The group soil farms from sites, mostly oil field, they bring them in and farm them until they are clean enough. Most of the time becoming dirt for covering on the landfill.

Ambipar has approached Redcliff and Cypress County about taking over the operation of the composting. Which is something they town and county are supportive of.

They proposed that the city consider doing a two or three year trial for Ambipar to take on some of the composting for the city as well.

“The potential for saving money to me is huge also because I know the community. I’ve heard from a lot of community members. This is a service that the community is looking for. This is not just council’s idea,” Councillor Allison Knodel said.

Ambipar is currently doing trial loads on feedstock from the City of Medicine Hat

Ambipar representative Will Everts spoke with council about what the costs associated could be if they were to use their services.

Council made a motion for a presentation on the environment and financial impacts of food waste to take place late this year.

Mustard Seed Potential Home

The rezoning bylaw for 2055 Saamis Drive Northwest went through a first reading, and a public hearing will take place before the potential future home of the Mustard Seeds 24/7 shelter is determined.

The location would integrate the services two locations into one facility.

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READ: New Mustard Seed location in Medicine Hat being considered

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Mayor and Councillor Pay

Mayor and councillor pay in the next term was pushed to the Sept. 29 meeting.

A decision on if and what the raise could be will now be delayed until after Sept. 22 deadline for candidates to declare for the municipal election.

by Jesse Gill

Several items pushed to future meetings during Medicine Hat council meeting

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