Mayor Blaine Hyggen has called for a special private meeting of the City of Lethbridge council in Alberta on April 14, 2026, at City Hall to discuss building safety standards and how the city spends public money.
The meeting will begin at 9:00 AM and will focus on two main topics. Leaders will receive an update from the Safety Codes Council and conduct a review of the city’s buying practices, which are the rules for how the city purchases goods and services.
While the session is closed to the public, the discussion follows a 2024 report that found major mismanagement at the Lethbridge & District Exhibition regarding a $70 million project. That report showed a lack of formal rules for hiring contractors and resulted in over $660,000 in extra costs that could have been avoided.
The Safety Codes Council update comes after the group recently published a new long-term plan to improve building inspections and permits. This affects local residents and business owners who must follow these standards when working on construction or renovation projects in the community.
This review is one of the first major sessions for the current council since the October 2025 election. Mayor Hyggen, who has run local small businesses for 28 years, previously stated the city would create new rules to ensure all organizations using city funds are held accountable.
