Lethbridge Minute: Capital Spending, Regional Restrictions, and Paying More For Everything

Lethbridge Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Lethbridge politics

This Week In Lethbridge:

• Happy Easter! We hope you had a good weekend, whether you were able to visit with family or not. There's another busy week ahead for Council, starting with a City Council meeting at 1:30 pm on Tuesday. Council will be debating quite a number of different issues including, notably, a recommendation from the General Manager of Recreation & Culture that the City extend Bylaw 6239, the Temporary Mandatory Face Covering Bylaw, until December 31, 2021. At 4:00 pm, after the City Council meeting, there will also be a Public Hearing.
  
  
• On Wednesday at 1:30 pm, there will be an Economic Standing Policy Committee which will receive presentations regarding a number of Capital Improvement Programs from several Departments and City Managers. Some of these projects include upgrades to the Henderson Ice Center, Fritz Sick Pool Renovation, an Arena Replacement, an Indoor Court/Multipurpose Space Functional Study, and more. Despite the economic consequences of COVID-19, it appears there's no shortage of money, or at least debt, at City Hall!
  
  
• Finally, on Thursday at 1:30 pm, there will be a meeting of the Community Safety Standing Policy Committee which will receive presentations from the Manager of Community Social Development as well as a presentation from the President of the London Road Neighbourhood Association on rising crime in the London Road area.

Last Week In Lethbridge:

• On Monday, Lethbridge-West MLA, Shannon Phillips, called on the Provincial government to implement harsher Lethbridge-specific restrictions to deal with Lethbridge's relatively stable COVID count, which is not even at half of the active infections that the City of Brooks encountered last year. As you'll see in our petition to Reopen Lethbridge, we're actually in favour of regional restrictions, but we don't agree that such a system would require further restrictions in Lethbridge and we definitely don't agree that they should be used to harm small businesses while Walmart and Costco remain packed!
  
  
• The municipal campaign trail is heating up as Lethbridge now has three declared mayoral candidates. Harley Myhovich, from B-93's Morning Show, announced he is taking a leave of absence to throw his hat in the ring, citing federal regulations that stipulate it would be a conflict of interest for him to remain on the air while running for office. Less than seven months to go now!
  
  
• Finally, Lethbridgians can expect to pay more for everything thanks to yet another hike in the federal carbon tax that kicked in last Thursday. The latest increase will directly add another 2.3 cents to the cost of each litre of gasoline, plus all sorts of indirect increases on other goods that must be transported to shops and consumers. At least Canada's original carbon tax, winter, is almost over!

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