April 1986 saw St. Albert celebrating its 125th anniversary, and to honour the occasion MLA Myrna Fyfe enjoyed the privilege of moving the speech from the throne in the legislature.
As she did so, she took the time to show off copies of The Black Robe’s Vision, the first expansive history of St. Albert. City sports fans were roaring about the St. Albert Merchants’ provincial junior B title, but taxpayers were up in arms after receiving their assessment notices, with many finding they would have to pay as much as 50 per cent more in taxes. In response, council started exploring the idea of a tax umbrella that would give ongoing rebates to owners of homes valued at greater than $56,000.
That umbrella folded the next April as council decided against renewing it. The city's other main sports institution — the St. Albert Saints — also chose to move on and fired coach No. 7, Gary Braun, who had been coaching the team for 18 months. The Catholic school board, meanwhile, finally adopted recommendations to teach human sexuality to junior high students. Topics to be covered — in the context of the church — included premarital sex, contraception, homosexuality, incest, sexual abuse and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
By April 1989, the city was faced with a change of leadership. Having won a seat in the legislature and taking over as Alberta solicitor-general, Mayor Richard Fowler cleaned out his office at St. Albert Place after an eight-and-a-half-year tenure. Council subsequently voted to name Ray Gibbon interim mayor. The Saints also saw a change as Doug Schum resigned as coach. Bruce Osland was hired in his place.
The Gazette started off April 1990 with a little joke, running a story about how the old Sturgeon General Hospital site will be turned into a $17-million hotel with waterslides and an underground LRT from the hotel to Big Lake. But there was no joking around at the new Sturgeon hospital. After being forced to butt out in patient rooms, smokers were ordered to leave the building entirely, at least until the hospital built a properly ventilated smoking room. Yet the coughing heard around the hospital and Sturgeon Health Unit was coming from a whooping cough outbreak that almost doubled from 23 to 40 cases in less than a week. The illness didn't affect the midget AAA Eagle Raiders who, for the first time in city history, won a spot at nationals in Serol, Que. Despite a strong showing, the team finished in fourth place.
The Protestant board received some welcome results in April 1991 — a survey of students suggested fewer teens than the year before were sexually active. This was particularly significant because the survey was conducted one year after condom machines were installed in school bathrooms. Under the “truly bizarre” file, the St. Albert RCMP charged a paraplegic man with drunk driving after he was found early one morning operating his motorized wheelchair on St. Albert Trail. The RCMP at the time said the law clearly stated any vehicle not operated by human propulsion was a motor vehicle while advocates for the disabled rhetorically wondered if all physically challenged individuals would require drivers' licences. St. Albert Minor Hockey was able to put an embarrassing episode to bed after a judge found former president Gord Hennigar not guilty of theft, stemming from charges he had used minor hockey funds to pay for promotional materials during his campaign for alderman. Hennigar explained the printer had mistakenly billed his materials with others intended for minor hockey, none of which was ever distributed.
What was referred to as The Kidz Gazette became the St. Albert Future Voice Gazette, and in April 1992 still featured the writing and drawing talents of local students. None were legally allowed to cover the re-opening of the Bruin Inn in April 1993, however, as the downtown establishment adopted the moniker Pinky's 2, making it St. Albert's first strip club.
By the following April, the Ralph Klein era was fully under way and the effects were far-reaching. The Sturgeon Health Unit learned it would be axed, with the city's health care needs now lumped in with Edmonton and Sherwood Park as one of 15 regional health authorities. The province also withheld the annual $10,000 cheque that funded the local Hire-A-Student office. Just when it looked like the office would have to shut down, the Optimist Club stepped in with $6,500 to keep it open.
Scott Pfeifer brought gold home from the World Junior Curling Championships after beating Germany with the Colin Davison rink by a score of 6-2. But that golden moment was quickly tainted by the shadows of public vigilantism. Unknown to residents, a sex offender convicted of assaulting two boys he babysat when he was 14 and attacking a 16-year-old girl had been released back into the community from Alberta Hospital's Phoenix Program the previous Christmas. The public revelation in April 1994 elicited strong emotions in the community. Some formed a citizens' action committee to find out why the public wasn't informed while others took it a step further and followed the man, now 21, shouting obscenities at him, making lewd gestures and even barraging his family's home with rocks. In less than a week the man fled St. Albert, with his family following suit.
Peter Boer is an editor with the Gazette.
