Homeless shelter lease agreement to remain confidential until Jan. 24 council meeting

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on December 24, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Details of a homeless shelter lease agreement will remain confidential until the Jan. 24 meeting of city council.

Council on Friday conducted a special meeting at 1 p.m. in chambers at City Hall with two items on the agenda.

Those items also included a borrowing bylaw for funding regulated rate deferral amounts with council giving three readings to bylaw 6392.

After that item was passed unanimously, council briefly went into closed session and after emerging voted unanimously that council direct the mayor and city clerk to sign and seal the confidential lease and that it remain confidential until Jan. 24 and added to that meeting’s consent agenda.

Confidentiality of the lease agreement is pursuant to several sections of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP) including sections 16, 21, 23, 24 and 25.

Notice for the meeting was made more than 24 hours in advance, putting it in compliance with Section 194 of the Municipal Government Act.

Only five members of council were actually present in council chambers. They included mayor Blaine Hyggen, acting mayor Jenn Schmidt-Rempel and councillors John Middleton-Hope, Nick Paladino and Rajko Dodic.

Bylaw 6392, which council dealt with first, is a borrowing bylaw that allows the City to request from the province funds to cover the costs of electricity charges from Jan. 1 of 2023 to March 31 of 2023.

A report presented to council by Electric Utility general manager Jason Drenth stated that the City is the owner of an electrical distribution system and the regulated rate option provider, “providing electrical service to customers who have not signed up with another retailer.”

Due to provincial legislation that was passed on Dec. 15, the rate charged to RRO customers is capped from this coming Jan. 1 until March 31.

The borrowing bylaw lets the City receive provincial funds to cover the cost of buying electricity from suppliers with the funds to be repaid by the end of 2024.

Under provincial legislation, the RRO cap is 13.5 cents per kWH. Distribution system owners are required to buy electricity at a rate that is potentially higher than the rate being charged to customers.

The difference, called the deferral amount, will be collected in a recovery period from April 1, 2023 to Dec. 31, 2024.

The provincial funds are being provided with no interest charge.

The report to council says the difference between the capped RRO price and market price is about $5.3 million for the deferral period but that amount could increase if market prices increase.

The Lethbridge Electric Utility is required to provide electrical services to all customers within the city’s corporate limits who haven’t signed up with another retailer.

If the bylaw hadn’t been approved, the city electric utility could possibly have faced a deficit that would have to be absurd by the electric resume which could potentially affect future funding of capital projects and the return on investment to the City, said the report.

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