Local leaders need to build bridges instead of fences if they want projects such as the Villeneuve Airport to succeed, say the mayors of St. Albert and Sturgeon County.
Mayors Nolan Crouse and Tom Flynn spoke to about 120 people at the Edmonton Garrison's Officers' Mess Monday morning as part of the inaugural State of the Region Address.
The two mayors announced that they would hold this joint address last March.
Flynn said he and Crouse had been talking about rebuilding relations between their two communities even before they had been elected last fall.
There are really no borders between communities other than the one politicians and administrators worry about, Flynn said.
"St. Albert has been my home all my life as much as I've lived outside of it," he said, and many other county residents feel the same way.
St. Albert will grow out into the county over time, he continued, and the two councils need to figure out how to co-operate in order for that to happen.
"We need to be bridge-builders, not fence-makers," he said.
"If we trust each other and look for the common good, we can get a lot farther and a lot faster a lot easier."
Team effort
The joint address was a marked change from the often-acidic relationship these two communities had up until as recently as last year.
Crouse said the idea behind this talk was to encourage co-operation at other levels of their governments and to create a lasting tone that would shape the actions of future leaders.
"We're trying to establish a culture that cannot be reversed."
Crouse mentioned a wide range of issues that St. Albert and Sturgeon would have to tackle together: the future of Villeneuve Road, the location of future seniors' care facilities, regional transit, recreation, and many others.
One big opportunity is the Villeneuve Airport, Flynn said.
"It's a gem we don't recognize yet," he said, and could bring more businesses and tourism to the region. But the airport also needs a roughly $8-million sewer line to support future growth.
St. Albert and Sturgeon County are now working on a joint infrastructure study that could help address servicing along their shared borders, Flynn said. The study should be wrapped up early next year.
Flynn and Crouse both ruled out talks of annexation, saying that the topic hadn't even come up during their conversations.
"Tom and I have only talked about boundary adjustments," Crouse said, which he portrayed as more co-operative than often-hostile annexations.
Flynn noted that there were several proposed projects in Sturgeon that were close to St. Albert and really should become part of that city.
Crouse said he had not considered the possibility of merging St. Albert and Sturgeon into a specialized municipality like Strathcona County. While some regions such as Manitoba were going all-in with mergers. Others, such as Toronto, showed how such mergers could be disastrous.
Mergers really boil down to money and urban communities wanting the tax revenues of counties, Flynn said. He believed St. Albert and Sturgeon could address that issue in another way.
Flynn and Crouse said their two governments were just about ready to sign the memorandum of understanding proposed earlier this year that outlines several principles regarding management of their border regions.
St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce president Lynda Moffat said the change in the air between St. Albert and Sturgeon is palpable.
"Even having something like this today sends a huge signal on the importance that both communities are placing on this."
Businesses need stability, and local businesses have been lobbying these two governments for years to patch up their relationship, Moffat said. That, combined with two leaders who have a lot of mutual respect for each other and who understand the importance of collaboration, has triggered this sea change in relations.
Moffat said she was pleased by this change and what it meant for the future development of Villeneuve Airport.
"Five years ago, they wouldn't have even talked about it with each other, and today it seems to me that there is a glimmer of hope that maybe we can start seeing this come to fruition."
