Winter is coming (or already here in certain Alberta communities)
Thursday was the first day of fall. Snow wafted down on Edmonton, Banff and Calgary this week.
The Western Hockey League season began Friday and tonight the Tigers hit home ice for the 2017-18 campaign.
In case you haven’t noticed, winter’s on the way, or at least colder temperatures.
That forecast doesn’t extend to the now-underway municipal election.
Transit deal undone?
Keeping straight what exactly is happening with the transit system will get more complicated on Monday.
That’s when a city advisory committee is prepared to ask council members to keep the current bus routes but add weekend and weeknight service to what’s in place.
A lack of buses at those times was a major complaint of riders and others since the new system debuted in early September.
This week council voted 6-3 to return to the previous system while the new system is reexamined or improved by planners.
The switch could take up to three months however, say city officials.
The Social Development Advisory Board says a better plan is to add buses and see the results, rather that undertake a second wholesale swap back to back.
The whole city seems to have an opinion about it, either because they ride the bus or know someone who does, or they are one of many who have called for cuts to the system they see as inefficient. Others are now engaged because of the fireworks the issue has created prior to and now during, a municipal election.
Hatters afar
It’s election time across Alberta, and the News finds former Hatter Nancy Hartford in a race to represent Rimbey on Ponoka County Council.
Hartford, whose maiden name is Stuber, grew up in Orion and Seven Persons, has served one term already and is now running for a second.
“It’s a very well-run county and my friends talked me into it,” Hartford told the News.
As well, former Medicine Hat Cubs coach Stu Holland is vying to become mayor of Kamloops in a special byelection on Sept. 30. His platform is in favour of a proposed gold-copper mine in the region as well as homelessness initiatives similar to the Hat’s.
Holland ran in the 2007 local aldermanic election, but didn’t secure a seat.
Going way back
Rod Fonteyne, who played for the original junior Tigers in the early 1950s, passed away this week in Ft. St. John, B.C. There Fonteyne was a big part of the hockey scene and a coach of the senior (basically adult amateur) men’s team, when senior hockey was big in the 1960s, and who stayed as a fan and administrator.
Beyond the Hat, he also played a short stint with Seattle in the original Western Hockey League, which was a professional loop considered the NHL’s farm system.
His brother Val was a bigger success on the ice. He played 970 games in the NHL and WHA until 1974, but recorded just 30 career penalty minutes over that time.
A look ahead
A city committee will hear Monday a public advisory board request to hold off on reverting to old bus routes. The planning commission sits Wednesday and council next convenes Oct. 2.
100 years ago
Flamboyant businessmen J.L. Peacock, had purchased a ranch northeast of the city, the
News reported in Sept. 1917. It assured the return of one of the Hat’s original settlers after his departure for the States in 1912.
New utility rates set gas for residential use at 20 cents per 1,000 cubic feet and 5-cents for manufacturers. The average in Calgary was 35-cents.
The city was ordered to pay R.S. Lea $2,500 and a commission by a judge after the planner successfully sued over a disagreement over his work on the city’s waterworks.
The Borden government enacted closure on the franchise bill that added female relatives of service men to voting rolls. Women’s groups protested the move stating it was a transparent half measure to bring support for the draft.
Some western Liberals decried the Tory prime ministers efforts to head a coalition “Union” government after large number of Quebec Conservatives defected over the issue of the draft.
Troops under the control of Premier Kerensky left Petrograd in order to meet rebelling army units under the control of Gen. Korniloff, eventually leading to the collapse of the putsch and the declaration of the Russian Republic.