Does Lethbridge Housing Authority have a conflict of interest?

Who is Robin James?

That was a question I asked myself, when I saw a campaign sign of hers pop up on the corner of a busy intersection of downtown Lethbridge.

Robin James is running as a city council candidate in the 2025 municipal election here in Lethbridge. She also ran in the nomination race to be the UCP candidate for Lethbridge-East in the 2019 provincial election.

Currently, she is the chief administrator of the Lethbridge Housing Authority, a housing management body established under the Alberta Housing Act.

More on that later.

I was curious about that particular sign, given that the City of Lethbridge recently outlawed campaign signs on municipal right-of-ways and public property. As well, permission was required by the property owner if a sign was placed on private property.

Now, technically, although it was close to the intersection I mentioned before, it was actually in a parking lot that belonged to a a small commercial building with a few occupants. Just right at the very edge of that parking lot.

I was curious as to who owned the lot, and after doing some digging, I realized that Robin James used to be the owner of a liquor store that was at this location.

That liquor store had since closed down, but it made me wonder if she still had a connection to the building.

Some more sleuthing brought up a company called JC James Properties Ltd. This company was behind the renovation of the west end of the building and the east end of the building.

The redeveloped east end is now the home of Elevate Construction Partners Inc. More on that in a bit.

Listed on the about page of Elevate Construction is John James, their senior project manager. According to his LinkedIn profile, John James used to be a commercial realtor for JC James Properties Ltd.

John James is married to Robin James.

It seems like getting the permission from the property owner at this location would be pretty easy if you are married to him.

When JC James Properties Ltd. redeveloped the east end of this property, they applied for the City of Lethbridge’s Target Redevelopment Incentive Programme.

The programme provides financial incentives to developers of properties downtown, in the warehouse district, along 13 Street North, or are a brownfield property.

The project must have a verified construction value of at least half a million dollars.

In this case, JC James Properties Ltd.’s phase 2 redevelopment (the east end of the building) had an estimated $550,000 construction value when they applied for the TRIP.

Their incentive was the cancellation of a portion of property taxes over 5 years:

	Cancelled taxes
Year 1	$6,075.00
Year 2	$6,135.75
Year 3	$6,197.11
Year 4	$6,259.08
Year 5	$6,321.67
	$30,988.61

Maybe it is just me, but something seems off about the husband of the chief administrator of the Lethbridge Housing Authority not having to pay $30,000 of his property taxes.

Granted, the property that JC James Properties Ltd. owns at this location had a device installed to play audio that deters unhoused people from sleeping near the property during the night. Again, perhaps that is just me, but that seems counterintuitive for the spouse of the chief administrator of the organization that is supposed to help unhoused people to be doing this.

But then again, Robin James owned a liquor store, which willingly sold alcohol to unhoused people who were addicted to alcohol. While she was working for the Lethbridge Housing Authority.

Which brings us back to the two points I was deferring to later in the article.

Earlier this year, Lethbridge received its first purpose-built supportive housing facility. The 30-bed building was funded by Alberta’s ministry of assisted living and social services and is designed for homeless adults who are recovering from addiction.

It will be managed by the Lethbridge Housing Authority.

Want to guess who the company was that constructed this facility?

If you guessed JC James Properties Ltd., then you were wrong. But you were pretty close: it was Elevate Construction.

Now, I do not have access to the minutes for the meetings when the selection committee for this project chose their contractor, so I cannot say with any certainty what was or was not said during those meetings.

But it sure seems interesting that the company that built the facility and the organization that will manage the facility each employ someone from the same household.

Oh, and one more interesting thing.

The City of Lethbridge recently releases the interim financial disclosure for candidates in the municipal election, and looks like Robin James received three donations—each for $1000—from two people who sit on the board of the Lethbridge Housing Authority. The board of directors is basically her boss.