Cash for bridge
Sturgeon County plans to chip in close to a million dollars for a walking bridge over the North Saskatchewan, and that has one councillor worried that they might have to deep-six other parks projects in the process.
Council voted 4-2 on June 12 to spend up to $815,000 on an underslung pedestrian walkway and associated trails for the new Hwy. 15 twinning project. Councillors Susan Evans and Dan Derouin were opposed, and Coun. Patrick Tighe was absent.
The proposed bridge is an initiative of the River Valley Alliance, a non-profit group of which Sturgeon County is a member that hopes to build one of the world’s biggest river valley parks along the North Saskatchewan River.
There’s currently no easy way to walk or bike from Sturgeon County to Fort Saskatchewan, said Brent Collingwood, executive director of the alliance in an interview. The alliance had planned to build a bridge on top of some old CN bridge pilings near the Hwy. 15 bridge, but that was years away, and would likely cost about $13 million (assuming the pilings were even usable).
All that changed when the province announced last year that it planned to twin the Hwy. 15 bridge, Collingwood said. The alliance has teamed up with the province to attach a pedestrian walkway to the underside of the new bridge and construct connecting trails for about $5.16 million. It wants Fort Saskatchewan to cover $903,000 of this and Sturgeon to chip in $815,000. The province has agreed to cover any cost overruns for the bridge part of this project, he added.
County community services manager Susan Berry said that council could identify the source of this money in future budgets. A previous alliance project – the Lamoureux Trail – was entirely funded by grants and donations, she noted.
Coun. Wayne Bokenfohr, the county’s representative with the River Valley Alliance, said this proposal was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” and that it would be short-sighted not to pursue it.
“It’s not just for our residents, but I think it’s for the whole region as well.”
But it’s also close to a million dollars, said Evans, who raised concerns about how this expenditure could affect other parks projects if it wasn’t covered by grants and donations.
Berry acknowledged that funding this bridge could jeopardize the rate at which the county proceeds with planned improvements to Cardiff Park (which is in Evans’s division). However, residents have also emphasized the importance of trails, and this trail was important for regional collaboration.
Coun. Karen Shaw said this proposal simply committed the county to setting aside money over the next few years to pay for this bridge and would not sacrifice other parks projects.
The new bridge would likely be complete by 2022, Berry said.
Adventure Centre defence
County residents stepped up in defence of what was once the Boysdale adventure camp.
Council chambers were packed as John-Mark Gal spoke on June 12 in defence of the Hope Adventure Centre, which is the new name for the Boysdale youth camp. About half those present indicated (by show of hands) that they supported the centre.
Said camp ran for many decades near the confluence of the Sturgeon and North Saskatchewan River. The group behind the camp hopes to renovate and revive it as a 22-day program for youths and young adults who are in or aging out of the foster care system.
In May, a similarly large crowd came to council chambers to call for the project to be shut down, saying that its proponents had not been open about their intentions and that the people at the camp were a threat to local residents.
Gal, the executive director for the Hope Adventure Centre, questioned what evidence centre opponents had of this security threat. While many young adults in foster care can have criminal records, he said this program would not accept them, as the program involved travel to the United States.
These youths are just like anyone else except some of them are foster kids, Gal said. Youths in or aging out of foster care can already join any other sports team or public program in Sturgeon without an issue, “yet somehow if they enter our program they’ll make the community unsafe.”
Area resident Lance Anderson-Croft said he and his husband Blair were glad to see someone revive the camp, as it had become a “tumbledown wreck” and the site of illegal dumping.
“They’re coming in and fixing it up and making it an asset again. Seems like a positive step,” he said, and it could create local jobs for youth.
Anderson-Croft said he and many of his associates had never had any problems getting information about the centre from its proponents and had all their concerns addressed. He said that a small group of residents had gone to great lengths to vilify the project’s proponents, and had used aggressive and misleading tactics to bully supporters into submission.
Derouin, whose division includes the Boysdale Camp, said this was the first time he’d heard of a group of residents here that supported the centre.
“I didn’t realize there was a group of people in favour of the camp,” he said.
“Nor were we asked!” replied Blair.
Council did not take any specific action in response to Gal and Anderson-Croft’s presentations.
