Standing policy committees could be a thing of the past in 2026 as Lethbridge city council considers reviving the Community Issues Committee.
Mayor Blaine Hyggen, along with councillors Al Beeber, Rajko Dodic and Ryan Parker, brought forward the proposal that would change the City of Lethbridge’s committee meeting and governance structure and dissolve most standing policy committees. The move is aimed at making council more accessible and transparent, Hyggen said, something council heard “loud and clear” during the election.
“We have these standing policy committees that we changed to here about four years ago and what that did was it made it so that there was four council members on each one of these committees and then they would bring something to council,” Hyggen said. “A lot of times that whole thing would be rehashed again at council because some of the members, although they’re always invited, they are just not voting members, could attend these.”
Hyggen said the current standing policy committee structure, which focuses on one area or topic of discussion, will be replaced by a model that he believes will reduce costs and streamline administration time by consolidating meetings into a broader community committee.
“We’ve had many times where if there’s not something on an SPC agenda, it gets cancelled and so there’s a lot of staff resources that go into that here at the city to just find out that maybe something’s cancelled. I know there’s many things they could be doing in that time that they would have been working in an SPC but we’re trying to streamline things.”
According to the mayor, the change would create more stability for residents and council members by making council meetings and committee meetings happen on a predictable schedule.
Co-sponsor councillor Al Beeber said the change would be a positive step for the city.
“I continue hearing from various community board members about how they feel SPCs are actually a roadblock to them getting council’s ear,” Beeber said.
During the Dec. 16 Lethbridge city council meeting, council voted 7-2 in favour of potentially dissolving the SPCs. The governance structure will not officially change until a new bylaw is written and voted on by council.
“It would be my guess that if you had seven that were in support of it happening, I can’t say for sure if I would support the bylaw, but I would imagine as long as it had all the information that we indicated when we approved the motion earlier this week,” Hyggen said.
If approved, the agenda review committee would recommend which issues and topics would be brought to the community issues committee. According to the city, the Audit SPC and Finance SPC would continue to operate as they are.
