My name is Nicole Frey and I'm a Hatter. I've lived here only for the last two years and love our community and the people. It's an amazing place to live and to raise a family. 

Medicine Hat is in trouble. We have an inexperienced, ill-equipped Mayor and City Council and the effects of that are undeniable. Soaring energy prices and a Council more interested in profit than providing their community members an affordable cost of living is affecting all of us. I don't think it's okay for them to say "these prices won't last forever" as an excuse not to take action now. Their community is struggling. Our utility bill was over $600.00 last month. Where did the Medicine Hat Advantage go?

Increasing drug use. Increasing problems in the downtown core. Increasing homelessness. I don't feel safe downtown yet the city only seems to want to give money to other people to revitalize the area instead of doing anything to help the people there.

Council has been consistent in making excuses and dismissing the views of their constituents because we are not experts in the Municipal Act (even though we aren't hired to be). Instead of answering our questions, they refer to us being ill-informed or simply don't reply at all. This is unacceptable. (Shila Sharps)

They complain that no one comes to the meetings but do nothing to change that. It's like they use the excuse that no one is interested in watching them be ineffective and dysfunctional as an excuse to continue to be ineffective and dysfunctional. In private sector they would be fired.  In public sector we are being held hostage.

Council members are continually and consistently showing their unwillingness or inability to research and understand the issues put before them. And more concerning - they then vote on them anyway. (Shila Sharps and Darren Hirsch)

Council is continually and consistently unprepared at meetings, complacent, and full of excuses.

We need doers. Not people who hide behind inaction.

We need an administration that will face the issues head on - not deflect them. And not just be cheerleaders without adding anything of value or standing up to be leaders. (Allison Knodel and Cassi Hider).

We need communicators. We need a Mayor who is people facing, out in the community, communicative and for the people.  Not hiding behind pre-recorded podcasts that no one cares about.

We need an administration willing to provide their community with a voice and an opportunity to have that voice heard. Not dismiss our voices because they don't like what we say or how it may be said to them. Being in the public eye comes with criticism and nasty messages from humans - I get them all of the time with my work for our Animal Food Bank.  That doesn't mean you can stop the work you do. It's not an excuse not to make good decisions and keep moving forward. Council has to stop being allowed to make the issue about how people are speaking to them, and focus on what the issues are people are upset about. This is especially true for Ramona Robins.

We need Council members who know even though the job is part time, and that they work elsewhere, they have make the time to read, research and understand the issues put before them.  We need people at that table who don't think it's okay to admit they haven't bothered to read the agenda or look up words they don't understand prior to the agenda item being heard (Robert Dumanowski)

If the job can't be done in part-time hours then we need the council members to be full time - we could have 6 full-time members, pay them $65k/yr plus benefits for the same price as 8 part-timers.  This would remove the ability for them to be unprepared and their entire job would be working for their constituents. 

We need a communications department that is transparent and responsive (The Mayors Office). One that doesn't present their communication as coming from the Mayor when it is not clear if it is or not.

We need council members who don't treat research as something they do when they have, and to quote Shila Sharps, "nothing better to do this past weekend" than try to understand the very issues being put before me to vote on (one I add that she had already voted on, apparently completely uninformed while doing so)

We need an Administration that holds those they've awarded contracts to do the work they are supposed to be doing accountable (Community Housing). If they can't do the work because the workload has increased due to the inaction of the City (APARC) then we need the City to do something. The crisis of addiction and housing are rampant. 

This is not personal and this is not about TNR. The City staffs inability to draft a productive bylaw, and Councils inability to understand and vote on TNR in a timely fashion, is a symptom of the bigger issue of their ineffectiveness. Don't le them tell you this is about anything other than that.

I don't know any of these council members personally, or the Mayor. This is about what is best for Medicine Hat and not the city coffers, or the paycheques of those charged with being the stewards of our city and our community, of the organizations awarded contracts to deliver services on behalf of the City.

Council complains people are being mean to them. I don't condone that. Kindness goes further. But they also are using that as more fodder to do nothing. If they don't like the way the constituents who voted you in are now treating them, they need to step back and figure out why that is. 

They are failing, and they are doing nothing about it but blaming us.

This is an ineffective Administraion. While the Mayor and Council continue to collect their paycheques we are faced with the fallout. I'm tired of it.  Are you?

I see people complaining online all of the time. Are you willing to put your voice here and demand action and change?  I hope so.

The government claims there is a way for us to formally hold them accountable but it's impossible to achieve.  It will require 40% of our voting population to sign the petition within 60 days of formally filing the request to recall the officials with the City's Chief Administrative Officer, each signature needs to be physical with specific information, a witness and affadivit attached, and there is a hefty fee to pay to submit the request. Since we didn't even have 40% of the population turn out to vote in the last election, and no one uses physical petitions, never mind ones that require affadivits witnessing each signature,    https://www.alberta.ca/holding-elected-officials-accountable.aspx

So we are held hostage until the next election. But I want us to send the City of Medicine Hat a message - even if we can't force them to resign. 

We are watching, and we won't forget.

Be better.  Do better. Your community demands it.

Thanks for your support!

Nicole Frey