Understanding of City Operations:

1. What do you think the current Mayor, Council, and City Administration are doing well?
   
   

The core functions of municipal government such as streets, sewer and water, police, fire, garbage, and parks are being addressed to varying degrees of quality and success. 

2. What do you think needs improvement in the processes of City Council and Administration? How would you make these improvements?
   
   

We need to review the KPMG Reports and find out why key features have yet to be implemented.   The areas of Transparency and Accountability need to be brought into focus so that the decision-making process and the implementation of those decisions are brought into line with taxpayers’ expectations for probity and value-for-money.

3. What recommendations would you make to engage more citizens in the City’s Municipal Development Plan (MDP) process?

Hold an ongoing series of Town Halls, both in person and virtually, with presentations from both the City and citizens, complete with Q & A sessions and reports back to the community.  

Understanding of Community Needs and Concerns:

4. What do you think the top 3 issues are in the community, and what would you do to address these issues?

Public Safety: Between homelessness, aggressiveness, petty crime, addiction and a revolving door justice system, people are very disappointed in the way Lethbridge has been allowed to become less than desirable.  The first step is to acquire short term emergency shelter so that people do not need to sleep or camp in public spaces.  This would be followed by a day-use facility were services such as medical care and counselling can be provided. These 2 stop-gap measures would give us a bit of breathing space while we implement more permanent solutions.   In addition, we need to step up law enforcement for the protection of citizens and businesses that provide the jobs and taxes to pay for all these services that are essential.

Public Trust:   Citizens are not satisfied that the Municipality is always working in the public interest.  A greater level of consultation and involvement by the public in the decision-making process is necessary.  This can be done through town halls, online surveys, and questionnaires to improve public engagement.  There also needs be better performance reporting to the public so they understand we are getting maximum value for money.  This enhanced level of engagement should be an ongoing activity – a new way of doing business – not just a one-time thing.   

Economic Development:  Business is the engine that drives the local economy by creating jobs, paying taxes, and providing the goods and services we all need.  Supporting Choose Lethbridge by increasing funds over a 4-year period from the current $800K per year to $3.2M per year is an essential component to enhancing Lethbridge’s position as the Regional Capital of Southern Alberta.  This extra funding can easily be found by culling other, less productive, spending.

5. What would you want the City to do to create a good environment for businesses in Lethbridge?

We need to improve the perception that Lethbridge is not a safe place to shop and do business by tacking crime and nuisance offences through a combination of corrective measures to address the issues.  Next, we need to cut red tape and stop badgering businesses as if they are the bad guys.  Business is our friend.  Finally, we need to achieve more tax fairness by reducing property taxes on business.  This last step can be achieved through further implementing the KPMG recommendations and cutting back on vanity projects hoping that if we build it, they will come.   So far as helping the downtown businesses is concerned, get rid of paid parking.

6. In the most recent MDP process, what decisions did you agree with? What decisions did you disagree with? Why?
   
   Maybe I’m not reading the MDP correctly but it seems to me to be more aspirational than executable with all the right words. The level of planning is purely high level.  It is big, too. 
   
   a).  The comprehensive historical reviews is a great educational summary of the area and the evolution of the community up to today.
   
   b).  The recognition given to the Niitsitapii gives perspective to the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and hopefully some compassion for their situation.  Hopefully this will provide for a basis to work towards a future when all are recognized for their contributions and character.
   
   c).  The Neighborhood Lifecycle chart on page 55 is completely disconnected with the reality and inaccurately projects a much more rapid deterioration than I have observed here and elsewhere.
   
   d). I’m encouraged by the expression of interest towards reconciliation and hope measures to realize this agenda are implemented.
   
   e).  I’m disappointed the section on the Lethbridge Airport is very brief and only mentions the importance of the airport with delving deeper into governance model, strategic implications nor business opportunities.
   
   f). The section on Economic Development paid lip service to the importance of cost-competitiveness and streamlining development while in actual fact the City frequently is an obstacle to growth.
   
   g).  By focusing on preserving our industrial land supply for future development, which will be exhausted sooner or later, the City should be working more closely with the County of Lethbridge to make sure the needs of both jurisdictions are adequately met over the long term for land, utilities, and roads.    This can be accomplished through a series of strategic partnership agreements on a number of different fronts.
   
   h).   The section on Fiscal Responsibility sounds great in theory.  Hopefully the new City Council will actually make putting it into practice a priority.
   
   i).  The stated intention of working with the Indigenous community on a number of different areas and levels is very encouraging. Once again, it’s only more talk if we don’t put it into practice.
   
   j).  The emphasis on Arts is not in line with what the current makeup of our community and should be rebalanced in consideration of the other essential aspects of our service matrix.
   
   In summary, the MDP makes mostly all the right noises.  The devil, as we all know, is in the details.  Meanwhile a few sections such as the one on the DOWNTOWN are clearly not reflective of our reality. 

7. How would you prioritize transportation in the future for Lethbridge? (The current Lethbridge MDP prioritizes new development in the following order: pedestrian first, bicycles second, transit third, commercial vehicles forth, multi-occupancy automobiles (taxis, carpooling) fifth, and last is single occupancy automobiles.)

I would continue to maintain an emphasis on roads. They serve passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, and transit alike for reasons of efficiency, effectiveness, practicality, and safety.   We live in a free society where people have expressed a desire to come and go when, where, and how they please.   Social engineers, municipal planners and “they who know better” than the everyone else base their recommendations on a series of false assumptions:  That people are just waiting to be told what to do because they are incapable of making their own decisions. 

The reason people love their personal vehicles is because they offer convenience and save valuable time.  As well, they provide comfort in all seasons, health (important in the age of COVID), and safety (important with all the crime going on.  Finally, they provide flexibility with regards to passengers, goods, and destinations.  

With regards to commercial vehicles, there is no practical substitute.  Period.   So far as multi-occupancy vehicles are concerned, electric self-driving taxis have the potential to reduce demand for transit to a trickle by offering all the conveniences of a private motor vehicle for a fraction of the cost. 

Transit seems to be a very expensive option for transporting very few people.  The argument for providing transit at all hinges on the notion that it is a necessity.  Busses exert and exceptional degree of wear and tear on roads disproportionate to the actual benefit they provide.  As the new driverless electric vehicles become more available, need for transit service will evaporate.

With regards to pedestrians and bicycles, I see very little in the way of preventing people from using these means of transportation, as enjoyable as they are.  The issues of weather, terrain, speed, distance and carrying capacity will always limit their usage regardless of any safety issues.  Therefore, the cost of constructing special lanes for bicyclists far outweighs the utility.

The rate of infrastructure utilization is maybe the issue we should be debating.  Over the course of a day, most streets are utilized very little. The same thing goes for sidewalks and bike lanes. Considering the fact that something like 90% of all vehicle trips are single passenger despite having capacity for 2 to 6 people, gas tax rebates for ride sharing could be explored with the Province.  Perhaps HOV lanes during peak times are another option.   Perhaps integrating sidewalks for both pedestrians and bicyclists should be considered while a strategy for adding single and dual seat commuter vehicles into the transportation mix should be explored.   

Financial:

8. Where do you think the City should spend more money? Why?

The City should restore cuts to the LPS if not increase the budget in order to provide a greater level of public safety.  More than just increasing the funding, strategies for stretching the budget should be explored such as hiring more Peace Officers than fully equipped Police Officers.

The City should start planning for a third bridge to the West Side as the plan is to increase growth in that area.  In addition to reducing fuel consumption, carbon emissions and congestion while saving time and inconvenience, a third bridge will provide an extra safety corridor in times of emergency.  The longer we wait to start, the more it’s going to cost, no less.

Also, some additional spending on indoor sports such as soccer for young people would be a valuable investment in their safety and overall well-being.

Finally, money spent on Economic Development such as Choose Lethbridge generates over 100:1 return on investment.         

9. Where and how do you think the City should reduce spending? Why?

The City should reduce spending on building new parks and sports facilities (except for indoor soccer as this has an economic benefit), visual and performing arts facilities, and activities that compete with the private sector.  We need to reduce taxes that create a burden on retirees and those on low incomes.  

10. What criteria do you recommend the City examine prior to approving capital projects?

Determine what the net overall benefit is to those who will utilize such assets by ranking projects on a basis of necessity such as:  Safety, efficiency, operating costs, private sector alternatives and, most importantly, level of public support.

11. Looking at the City of Lethbridge Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Plan for the next 4 years, which two expenses are you most in favour of and which two expenses you would cancel or not support. Why?

Favour Affordable Housing funding as this is a valuable long-term investment of great benefit to the people who need it most.

Favour Nikka Yuko Garden pathway funding as its likely to find use by residents and visitors making this a health benefit and an economic benefit at comparatively low cost.

Cancel Curbside Organics Collection as many residents already compost and accomplishes practically nothing at great cost for the rest.  

Cancel Electric Busses as they are an inefficient and inexpensive way of achieving marginal gains.  Since the electricity they use comes from natural gas, a far more practical option would be natural gas/hybrid electric buses.  This way the benefits of regenerative braking are still realized while eliminating the energy losses from the generation and transmission of electricity to power them.