Lethbridge Minute: Warehouse District, Tax Increases, and Tourism Organizations Spar

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

This Week In Lethbridge:

• There are two meetings scheduled this week after Governance Standing Policy Committee and Advocacy Advisory Committee meetings were both cancelled. Going ahead, on Tuesday, there will be an Organizational Meeting of City Council. At this meeting, several confidential reports will be discussed, including Council member and public member appointments to Boards, Commissions, and Committees.
  
  
• There will also be a City Council meeting on Tuesday. On the agenda are the Downtown Clean and Safe Funding Strategy, an increase to parking fines, and ways to increase funding to address Regulatory Service Capacity Shortages. There will also be a submission from the Economic Standing Policy Committee on growing creative industries. 
  
  
• The third phase of public engagement regarding the City’s Transportation Master Plan is open. The City took feedback from the first two stages into account and proposed some concepts and priorities, and residents are now invited to evaluate those determinations. The survey is available online, at the City’s website.

Last Week In Lethbridge:

• The draft operating budget has been tabled and it looks as though tax increases are on the horizon. The City Treasurer said that, in order to meet current financial demands, average property taxes will need to increase by 3.77% each year for the next four years. After the four years of increases are all said and done, a homeowner with a property valued at $285,00 would pay $376 more annually than they did in 2022. Councillor John Middleton-Hope said residents should not expect this to be a cheap budget. Budget deliberations will take place November 14th to 18th.
  
  
• The City of Lethbridge hosted an open house Thursday looking for feedback from residents regarding the Area Redevelopment Plan for the Warehouse District. The City is currently working with outreach and community contacts in order to gather as much feedback as possible. Lethbridgians interested in finding out more details or providing feedback on the potential development can do so on the City’s website.
  
  
• Tourism Lethbridge and the Lethbridge Lodging Association (LLA) have been directed to enter mediation. During budget presentations at the Economic Standing Policy Committee, the LLA called Tourism Lethbridge ineffective and inefficient, and stated that working with the organization would be challenging. Council is funding the mediation and the two parties have been told to report back to the committee in December with a plan to work together.

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