Mayor Blaine Hyggen is bringing back informal coffee talks, starting with a community conversation this Friday in South Lethbridge. The first “Listening to Lethbridge” session happens July 31, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. at Little Nicaragua Coffee Company at 359 Stafford Dr N.
“I’m starting this back up again with ‘Listening to Lethbridge’ and will be at the Little Nicaragua Coffee Company at 10 a.m. on July 31,” Hyggen said in his July 2026 mayor’s column. The sessions are meant to “create space for open, honest conversations where we can learn from one another and build on the positive momentum already taking place throughout our community,” Hyggen wrote in a July 29 social media post.
Residents can drop in to share questions, concerns, ideas, or perspectives directly with the mayor in a casual setting. Hyggen has held similar coffee talks in the past, and the city says more sessions at different locations will be announced later.
The event comes as Lethbridge navigates several major issues, including the future of ambulance service and community safety. The city’s integrated Fire and EMS contract with the province ends September 30, 2026, followed by a six-month transition period. City council also adopted a new Community Safety Action Plan this month, and encampment-related 311 calls dropped 72 per cent in the second quarter of 2026 compared to last year.
Hyggen, a former small business owner first elected to council in 2013, was re-elected mayor in October 2025. The venue, Little Nicaragua Coffee Company, is a family-owned shop run by siblings Nora and David Úbeda, whose parents arrived in Canada as refugees from Nicaragua in 1988.
