Lethbridge Minute: Flyaway Bins, Physician Training, and the Animal Bylaw Review

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

This Week In Lethbridge:

• On Wednesday, at 1:30 pm, there will be a meeting of the Audit Standing Policy Committee. There are two confidential reports on the agenda, one regarding Unaudited 2023 Year End Financial Information, and another titled “Risk and Controls Annual Update and 2024 Workplan”.
  
  
• The Assets and Infrastructure Standing Policy Committee is scheduled to meet at 1:30 pm on Thursday. The agenda is quite thin, with the focus being on a verbal water conservation update from the Director of Infrastructure Services.
  
  
• The City is seeking public input for the second phase of the Animal Bylaw Review. The first phase involved gathering ideas and concerns from the public about topics of importance, and this second phase asks questions about what regulations might look like. The survey will be open until March 25th and can be taken online. The updated bylaw is anticipated to be presented to Council in late September.

Last Week In Lethbridge:

• The newly tabled Alberta provincial budget has allocated $43 million to a training program at the University of Lethbridge aimed at addressing the shortage of physicians in rural southern Alberta. The initiative, in collaboration with the University of Calgary, involves renovating the Community Centre for Wellness into a medical school and multidisciplinary teaching clinic. The University of Calgary’s medical school plans to have up to 30 undergraduate medical students at the Lethbridge satellite location, potentially starting within the next one to two years. The curriculum may be adapted to focus more on rural aspects and the admission process streamlined for rural and Indigenous students, with the aim of increasing the likelihood of them staying in rural areas for practice.
  
  
• The City said that recycling bins, particularly the blue bins, are prone to being blown over by strong winds due to their lightweight contents. The lids often don’t help as they act like sails, destabilizing the bins when not properly closed, leading to frequent incidents of fallen receptacles. To address the issue, a pilot project is being tested with about 5,000 homes, introducing a latching system to keep the lids closed and prevent tipping.
  
  
• The City has revamped its process for reporting parking-related concerns, directing residents to use online chat or call Lethbridge 311 instead of the Lethbridge Police Service non-emergency line. The change aims to streamline the reporting system and free up dispatchers at the Lethbridge Public Safety Communications Centre to attend to more urgent matters. The non-emergency line will still be available for other services unrelated to parking.

-----

Donate:

Common Sense Lethbridge doesn't accept any government funding and never will. We think you should be free to choose, for yourself, which organizations to support. If you're in a position to contribute financially, you can make a donation here.

-----

Share:

If you're not in a position to donate, we understand, but if you appreciate our work, you can help by spreading our message. Please forward this email to your friends, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and help make sure every Lethbridgian knows what's really going on at City Hall.