The legacy of Ted Grimm continued from page 71
Kelly was particularly impressed with Grimm’s response to the National Energy Program after he returned to the mayor’s chair in the early 1980s.
“Some of us believed he should be screaming to the rooftops and refusing to pay, but that wasn’t Ted. He wasn’t involved in histrionics, he wasn’t going to play politics with a very serious issue facing the people of Medicine Hat. He took the proper channels through in terms of legal challenges and won.”
Grimm would go on to navigate Medicine Hat through various booms and busts throughout his next 21 years in office, all the while continuing to build up the city. Grimm built a new city hall, encouraged extensive residential and industrial development, built the Family Leisure Centre and laid out the river valley park system. During his time in office Medicine Hat’s population more than doubled and Grimm’s steady management style kept the city on sound fiscal ground throughout.
Reinhardt. The much-hated National Energy Program was being brought in by the Trudeau government in Ottawa and Medicine Hat was facing tough fiscal times. Voters turned to the man with a plan: Ted Grimm.
“Steady as she goes would describe Ted
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Grimm,” long-time alderman and friend Graham Kelly recently told the Medicine Hat News. “Today, as often is the case, we have panic politics in Alberta. Ted guided the city through a couple of recessions and a couple of minor dips. We just kept steadily going knowing we’ll get through this with good management.”
“One of the fascinating things I learned in leadership, particularly, was once you set out the idea it’s amazing how the administration and the council commit to going to achieve it,” said Grimm. “I have never really measured (the success of) a city by the numbers you have. You have
to measure it by the quality of life you left behind.”
Former alderman Ken Sauer said what made Grimm such an effective manager was his ability to listen intently to others and never lose sight of the fundamentals.
“Sometimes people have their ear to the ground,” said Sauer. “He always knew the answers before he asked the questions. He knew what was going on in the city in such a way you knew you couldn’t have someone spin something by. That’s a good way to be a leader because you are not blindsided, nor are you buffaloed by somebody.”
Grimm stepped down as mayor in 2001. With the exception of one brief foray back into city politics in 2007, when he once again ran for mayor and lost to Norm Boucher, Grimm has kept his word and stayed away from the public spotlight, refusing to try to influence his successors.
“I’m a citizen,” Grimm told The Medicine Hat News in 2005. “I haven’t given up my rights, but there’s an appropriate time for someone who has retired to sort of shut up and revert to cranky citizen.”
Grimm still lives quietly in Medicine Hat with wife Ruth. ■
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