'Needs and not wants' will dictate priorities for Lethbridge going forward, mayor says

Despite being four kilometres apart, the Agri-food Hub and Trade Centre's shadow loomed large over Lethbridge City Hall in 2024.

A third-party review of the Lethbridge and District Exhibition — which ran the event centre until the city took it over — uncovered significant operational costs that were unaccounted for.

Now, the city's budget will feel the effects of council's decision to keep the centre open without increasing taxes.

Mayor Blaine Hyggen sat down for a year-end interview with the CBC's Lethbridge Bureau reporter Ose Irete to discuss  the event centre and city council's priorities in 2025.

Here is part of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.

CBC: How are you feeling right now about where the city is at with the Lethbridge District Exhibition? 

Blaine Hyggen: I'm not really happy how we got here, but happy with the decision moving forward.

Listening to the community, we heard loud and clear 'we can't sustain an additional tax increase on what was already approved in 2022.' So we pulled from reserves and from contingencies.

In the future, if there's an emergency, that fund's depleted. So we need to do our work on trying to find the efficiencies and cost savings over the next while, so that if an emergency does come up, funds are available. 

The next couple years, it's definitely needs and not wants, which is going to be tough.

What would you say to residents of Lethbridge who might feel they're still having to deal with the consequences now in this risky position?

BH: We had to make a decision and if we ended up closing the facility, which was brought up, there's still a cost there. 

That's hard. But in order to keep the tax rate down, there's going to be some tougher times to try to put dollars back into that contingency fund over the next couple of years, so that we don't have to raise taxes in the future.

What do you think you would change or do differently if you could go back and go through this process all over again? 

BH: We received information from what we thought to be very credible sources as far as expectations for the future of that organization. So I think maybe better checks and balances.

We have a motion that's coming to council to make sure that those checks and balances are done on a regular basis. It's something we definitely, definitely need to do because we just can't have this happen again.

Going into the last year of this council, what is the focus? 

BH: I think housing is going to be a very big one.

That's not just for those that are homeless, but also for folks that are moving to the community from other parts of Canada or international immigration. We just need to make sure that we're prepared for that.

If it's zoning or whatever that may look like, we need to make sure as a council that if funding does come in we're prepared to move forward.

I was at a meeting where people came forward opposing some of the proposed development. How do you communicate the need you're seeing to those people?

BH: When we move to an area or we build a home, we believe that this is what's always going to be there.

Those zones can change. And depending on some grants that we may be receiving, we're continually looking at what is best for the community. So multifamily maybe wasn't something 20 years ago and now it is.

We need to do a better job of really communicating to the citizens of Lethbridge around these areas.