After going 11 years without a murder, April 2001 brought an end to that milestone. On April 2, the body of 22-year-old Robin Abialmouna was found in his condo at Whelehan Place on Perron Street. An autopsy revealed Abialmouna died of a single gunshot wound. RCMP major crimes and the Edmonton Police Service collaborated on the investigation, as it was believed Abialmouna had gang ties. He had been facing charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon from a stabbing incident. To this day, no one has ever been charged with Abialmouna’s death.
The following April, some 700 students walked out of class and converged on the downtown office of MLA Mary O’Neill to protest the cancellation of all extracurricular activities, including sports, at schools. The job action by teachers, to not participate in any extra time commitments, came in response to back to work legislation ordered by the province. All sports in the Capital region were cancelled, as were dances and graduations at some local schools. By the end of the month, teachers and the government managed to come to an agreement. That month also saw the release of documents in a court case sealed for two years involving a massive fraud. The former manager of the Tudor Glen ATB had issued four certificates of safekeeping used to borrow funds from other banks or investors. The certificates were issued to two men from Texas and stated the bank held billions in American Treasury Bills, “private placement bonds” government securities for them. The problem was the bank didn’t issue such certificates. The RCMP and FBI investigated and discovered the Treasury Bills, bonds and other assets were all fake. The manager was subsequently fired.
Crime continued making the news in April 2003 as the RCMP raided two separate grow-ops, dismantling one valued at $50,000 and another at $263,000. In court, 19-year-old Michael Gray was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter for stabbing a 22-year-old to death. Unfortunately for the city, it had to say goodbye to two community icons. Ronald Harvey, a former mayor and first board chair of the Protestant school district, died at the age of 90. And sadly for the Gazette, former owner and publisher Ernie Jamison, once an MLA who served for eight years, died after spending the bulk of the previous year in different hospitals.
In 2004, St. Albert was ready to go it alone on a recreation centre in Campbell Park and made four different designs public with costs ranging from $24 million to $37 million. The progress on the recreation centre, however, came too late to save the St. Albert Saints, which owner Drew Schamehorn moved to Spruce Grove. The biggest issue facing the Saints was a new arena as Akinsdale could only hold 650 people.
The province finally announced in April 2005 that Big Lake would become a provincial park named for one of St. Albert’s most famous people — Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park. Construction on the recreation centre also officially began but quickly hit a snag as engineering changes forced the city to scrap a promised football field. The city committed to finding a new home for a premiere facility.
Sports editor Jeff Hansen was at his April Fool’s best on April 1, 2006, penning a story that local products Scott Pfeifer, Jamie King and Marc and Glen Kennedy were forming their own team. Quoting former curling club president Laurie Andrews, “It’ll be worth it when the boys win the Brier. Only a fool would think otherwise.”
Though the loss of the Saints made everyone wonder who would play in the new Performance Arena at the leisure centre, the city landed the Grant MacEwan Griffins as anchor tenants in April 2006. By the following year, the Fort Saskatchewan Traders had announced they were coming to town and residents were asked to vote for a new name for the AJHL team, picking from the Comets, Raiders, Spartans, Senators or Steel.
In April 2008, Mayor Nolan Crouse issued a public apology for the $2.3-million deficit at Servus Credit Union Place. Unfortunately, taxpayers got hit with the bill as council increased the 5.49 per cent tax increase by another 3.68 to cover the losses. Later, the city issued letters to one-third of homeowners who, because of an average 59 per cent increase in home values in St. Albert, saw their taxes increase by as much as 15 per cent. Proving Servus Place wasn’t a total flop, the facility hosted the Canadian Ringette Championships and saw the host Zone 5 Valta win gold in the junior division. But that good news was overshadowed by the shocking accusation by four previous Poundmaker residential school students that there is a mass grave at the site.
April 2010 saw Margaret Plain declared our city’s Volunteer Citizen of the Decade. It also saw the 25th running of the 10-Mile Road Race and the city decided to pump pesticide into Riel pond to kill off the three-spined stickleback. But most notably, former resident and AADAC executive Lloyd Carr was sent to jail for three and a half years for defrauding the government of $600,000. During the sentencing it even came to light that Carr was even lying about his job — he was not a painter in Swan River, Manitoba but a mental health clinician in Flin Flon. He got the job using a phoney University of Calgary degree, then forged a doctor’s note saying he had bowel cancer and required medical leave starting the day he was to be sentenced in Alberta. And Nolan Crouse, mayor of St. Albert, declared that he would run for office again in October.
Peter Boer is an editor at the Gazette.
