2024 a year of challenges and accomplishments for City
By Lethbridge Herald on December 30, 2024.
Mayor Blaine Hyggen oversaw a year of challenges and accomplishments for the City of Lethbridge.
Herald photo by Al BeeberAl Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
As mayor Blaine Hyggen prepares to address the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce in his State of the City address on Jan. 16, he is reflecting upon the year that was 2024. A year of challenges and accomplishments.
Among the accomplishments touched upon by the mayor in a wide-ranging year-end interview was increasing the staffing complement of the Lethbridge Police Service.
After many years, the LPS will be at full staffing levels in 2025 which the mayor says “is super exciting.
“You’ll see a larger police presence which is important, says Hyggen who has clearly heard from residents that public safety in the downtown and all areas is paramount to them.
“This is something that’s going to be able to help with that.”
From the time the recruitment process begins to boots are on the ground is about 18 months, says the mayor. So if communities want to hire police, it does take time.
Policing and emergency services, the mayor notes, accounts for the biggest chunk of the City’s budget, however “they’re two items that I think myself as a taxpayer – and I’ve heard loud and clear from community members – that public safety is a top priority.”
In the 2023-26 budget that was approved late in 2022, a large part of the annual 5.1 per cent annual property tax increase is to cover police and emergency services costs.
“There’s a cost that comes with that and I think the additional police services is welcome within our community,” says the mayor.
Another highlight includes housing projects with different grants available for private development which he also calls exciting.
Hyggen is highly supportive of the Fresh Start recovery centre on the outskirts of the city and the work it is doing to help people get back on the path to sobriety.
“It’s pretty exciting to see that has been as successful as it has been.”
The encampment strategy has also been a success, that strategy which is being emulated by other communities in Alberta.
“Our administration has done incredible work coming to council. It doesn’t come without a cost as we know but I think it’s been really good.”
At the start of the year, operation of the shelter was turned over to the Blood Tribe Department of Health, an initiative he supports as well as its expansion to get more people off the street.
He is also looking forward to the completion of the LHA supportive housing project just north of the shelter on Stafford Drive North.
The project will offer many services “so that these folks aren’t on the streets; they’re actually getting the supports they need,” notes Hyggen.
Another initiative that residents can see every time they drive on Scenic Drive South to different businesses or to connect with highways is a new name on the arena formerly known as the Canada Games Sportsplex.
Council approved this year a new naming agreement with Visit Lethbridge, which will pay the City $750,000 for a five-year sponsorship agreement that could be renewed for another five for a total investment by Visit Lethbridge of $1.5 million over 10 years.
The City also renewed the naming rights to Spitz Stadium this year for $250,000 over five years.
And private sponsorship of community-owned facilities is becoming more commonplace around the world, Hyggen notes pointing out to Calgary which has an arena called VisitCalgary.com arena.
“Sponsorship is huge because every dollar we get from sponsorships and businesses in the community, that takes away from taxation,” says Hyggen.
The mayor is also proud of water conservation efforts this year with citizens voluntarily reducing by a substantial amount their water consumption.
“A huge shout-out to the community because they realize that water is finite and we have to make sure we use it appropriately.”
He is also proud of efforts to attract more physicians to Lethbridge, those efforts which have expanded from bringing family doctors the city and area but also specialists.
Cardiologists, obstetricians, gynecologists, anesthesiologists, child psychologists and other specialists are also needed in southern Alberta so residents don’t have to travel to Calgary for care, he says.
And Hyggen is glad council voted against another 2.4 per cent property tax increase above the 5.1 per cent scheduled increase to support the Lethbridge and District Exhibition.
Council voted earlier this month against additional tax increase, tasking Administration with using different funding sources such as contingencies to pay the $4.1 million operating costs in 2025 and ‘26. If council had voted to shutter the new Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre, the City would still have to pay $2.5 million in annual costs.
“Although not sustainable at the moment and does need financial support from the City of Lethbridge, we look at that facility being sustainable in the future and we’ve got some incredible talent out there in administration that has been operating that building for the last year. That team has managed to reduce expenses substantially in the past year, he said.
Hyggen says the third party review of the LDE by Deloitte was important to see where the issues were.
“Council was up against a real tough decision” in a marathon meeting and city governance paid heed to the voice of residents who made clear they couldn’t sustain a tax increase higher than the one approved in 2025. That 2.4 per cent would have brought 2025’s property tax hike to 7.3 per cent.
While administration wanted the tax increase rather than use contingencies, to council “this was the best use of these dollars at this moment because to be quite honest, there are so many different costs with inflation and everything that’s happening in the community, and across Canada for that matter, we just couldn’t sustain an additional increase, says Hyggen.
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The idea that the “Mayor” and “Council” would even consider a tax increase to pay for THEIR lack of oversight and incompetence is nonsensical and insulting. We need better than this!
Huge tax increases, service reductions, massive potholes and sunken manhole covers all over the city. Traffic congestion. Too many do-nothing beaurocrats in City Hall, too much throwing away money not for the benefit of the taxpayer.