Grant funding denied for Opportunity Lethbridge

A request by Opportunity Lethbridge for more than $4 million in grant funding was denied Wednesday by city council acting as Economic Standing Policy Committee during deliberations on the 2023-26 budget.

The initiative, which would have cost taxpayers more than $1 million annually over the four-year budget cycle, was aimed at creating a fund to provide financial incentives through several supports.

Those would have included:

• Continuation of existing urban core revitalization with proposed policy amendments.

• Continuation of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) programs.

• A new flexible, strategic initiatives program to address priorities identified by Council and/or community, including but not limited to: physician recruitment, agri-food development, and brownfield remediation. Councillor John Middleton-Hope told the SPC he didn’t understand what the initiative was intended to accomplish.

Acting mayor Jenn SchmidtRempel said she couldn’t support the initiative because it was a lot of money to be collected from taxpayers “to maybe (be) used down the road.”

The SPC also turned down an initiative to create a Business Improvement Area support grant which would have cost the taxpayers $142,000 in 2023, $148,000 in 2024, $155,000 in 2025 and $162,000 in 2026.

The initiative would have called for the creation of a matching grant based on 50 per cent of a BIA district’s total levy to support efforts to create and maintain prosperous commercial districts.

The SPC defeated the motion unanimously.