Neat to Know: August 7, 2024
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Please enjoy this week's edition of Neat to Know, a roundup of City news, updates, and other important information. You can expect to see the week's most interesting content and even some that may have not been delivered through our regular channels.
It'd be neat to know how you read Neat to Know!
We've been issuing the weekly Neat to Know feature for more than six months now and we'd like your feedback on how it's going. With vast amounts of information hitting our inboxes and feeds these days, we want to keep things as streamlined and uncluttered as we can, while ensuring you receive the important information you want to know.
Temporary closure: Marlborough Coulee Trail closure
The trail in Marlborough Coulee has been temporarily closed for repairs as of Thursday, August 1 and is expected to reopen by Wednesday, August 14.
Please stay off the trail bridge and adhere to posted signage and barricades while maintenance is underway. During this work, trail users will need to take alternate routes to access the Saratoga Park Trail from College Drive SE. Please view the map for College Avenue SE and Dunmore Road SE trail detours.
Report-a-Problem
Though our staff does their best to keep an eye on all our infrastructure and park spaces around the city, we can’t be monitoring be everywhere at once. That’s why we appreciate the help from residents who happen to notice a stuck sprinkler head in a park, a street light outage, traffic light issue, broken swing on a playground, or any other infrastructure concerns that seem out of the ordinary.
To ensure issues are addressed as soon as possible, we encourage you to use our Report-a-Problem page on our website: medicinehat.ca/ReportAProblem.
You can submit a ticket through our Report-a Problem portal and keep track of the service request online or call one of the Report-a-Problem numbers to reach our staff in real time between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Thank you for continuing to bring these matters to our attention – we look forward to working together to keep our community in shape.
Creative Community at TREX Space
August 23 and 24 from Noon to 5 p.m. at TREX Space
Creative Community is a collaborative pop up art event featuring artists from CORE Association, Next Step, REDI Enterprises, Taber Special Needs and Venturers, hosted at TREX Space. The event is a celebration of the hard work and artistic talent of our community members!
The public is invited to visit TREX Space in downtown Medicine Hat on August 23 and 24 from 12 noon to 5 p.m. Visitors can expect a diverse array of artwork, complimentary light refreshments, multiple artists in attendance and a selection of work available for purchase.
Block Party @ Towne Square - Celebrating Car Culture
August 10 from Noon to 4 p.m. (drop in) at Towne Square, 603 First Street SE
This weekend at the Towne Square Block Party, we're celebrating Car Culture! Bring the kids for pedal tractor rides, see some unique vehicles, take a ride on the Tipsy Trolley, enjoy good eats at one of the food trucks, and shop for local goods with the market vendors.
What's that goop?
Have you ever parked your vehicle under a tree, or visited a playground in one of our tree-filled parks, and noticed everything covered in a substance that looks like it rained syrup?
Well, you can most likely thank aphids for that. The substance is a sugary liquid waste called “honeydew” which aphids produce when they feed on tree and plant sap. The more aphids in a tree, the more honeydew they drop from it.
That’s neat! But it certainly can make a mess.
Despite how sticky honeydew is, it can be pressure washed off quite effectively.
So, if you’re ever wanting to visit one of our parks, but notice honeydew covering swings or slides, just call our Parks and Recreation department’s Report-a-Problem number at 403-529-8333 (extension 6) and we can take care of the matter as soon as we are able.
And that’s the scoop on aphid poop.
Service disruptions and closures
We've released a new page on our website that collects all our advisories related to road closures, trail and park closures, maintenance, and utility outages in one easy to access location.
What does the City Manager do?
In the last edition of Municipal Matters in the Medicine Hat News, City Manager Ann Mitchell describes the role of a City Manager within the municipal structure. Drawing on learnings from her Master’s Degree thesis, as well as references to our provincial Municipal Government Act, City Manager Mitchell discusses relationship-building and lifelong public service.
Budgeting for a municipality
When budgeting in a municipality, it is important to keep in mind that municipalities are unique. We are different than businesses and even other levels of government for many reasons. This is the first in a five-part series about how municipalities must consider things differently when budget planning.
Municipalities must budget to operate indefinitely.
The municipality provides the basic foundational services that make it possible for people to live and work in Medicine Hat. As long as the City exists, so does the municipal corporation. Thus, the City must budget in a way to ensure it is around for generations to come. Maintaining critical operations is prioritized, while a relatively conservative approach is applied to new spending, while carefully considering investment required for necessary growth and vibrancy.
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