St. Albert and Sturgeon County have agreed to get professional help next year to fix their rocky relationship.
The City of St. Albert and Sturgeon County agreed Thursday to call in a provincial mediator and hold a joint strategy meeting next February. The agreement was made at a meeting of the intergovernmental affairs committee, which includes members of both governments.
The city and the county have clashed repeatedly in recent years over a number of issues. The county recently angered the city with its proposed municipal development plan, for example, while the city infuriated the county by opposing its Villeneuve area structure plan. The intermunicipal development plan, Servus Credit Union Place and the 127th St. realignment have also sparked conflict.
The intergovernmental affairs committee was supposed to patch up these differences, says county Coun. Tom Flynn, who sits on it, but its meetings have been characterized by awkward silences, poor attendance and mistrust.
The province offers mediators to help governments resolve these disputes, Flynn said, and the committee agreed to call one in. “If everyone can be honest with things and put all the cards on the tables – and a third party mediator will do a better job of that than us doing it ourselves – we’ll start finding out what differences we have and start working towards working better together.”
The exact details are still in the works, said St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse, but the meeting will likely set out what issues the city and county want to work on during the next four years. It may be behind closed doors as well to let councillors be more open with each other. “It’s really intended to set the next council up for success.”
It’s important for governments to build trust with each other, Crouse said, and that starts with social gatherings and personal relationships. “You have to have some understanding on a personal level of what’s important to each other.”
This meeting will let the city and county step back from day-to-day issues and look at the big picture, Crouse said. “Communities expect elected officials to do these kinds of things, to get together and figure stuff out,” he said. “You don’t need four years of dirty laundry.”
The city and the county have a lot of shared initiatives on their borders, Flynn said, and need to work together on them. “If we work together, we can both be better off.”
The meeting is scheduled for February 2014 at a to-be-determined location.
