Sturgeon County Mayor Don Rigney says he was surprised when he heard that St. Albert city council had voted to pursue an annexation.
“I’m very surprised by this development,” Rigney said. “We’d heard rumours a while back but at the last joint council meeting with St. Albert, before they took this decision, I was assured annexation was not being considered or pursued.”
Council voted on April 30 to pursue an annexation as part of its industrial development plans. The option to start an annexation was included as an option if councillors didn’t support locating industrial lands in any of three identified areas. Council voted in favour of designating lands to the west for industrial development, then approved the annexation motion as well.
Rigney said he has advanced the idea to St. Albert in the past of jointly pursuing industrial development.
“I thought … there was similar interest in pursuing this,” Rigney said. “Clearly with the activity in the Industrial Heartland and Fort McMurray, there is a need to develop a kind of Nisku-north in Sturgeon County north of the city.”
Rigney was a county councillor during the last annexation by St. Albert of county lands in 2007 and one of its most ardent opponents. Despite the fact the two municipalities had agreed in 2001 to an annexation to bring a Walmart to the area, Rigney went so far during the second annexation hearing as to provide a notice of motion that Sturgeon annex Walmart back from St. Albert.
While St. Albert and Sturgeon, under mayors Paul Chalifoux and Helmut Hinteregger, were able to conclude the basics of the 2007 annexation, the matter of revenue sharing of commercial lands along Highway 2 was sent to the province’s Municipal Government Board for decision. The board decided in St. Albert’s favour.
Sturgeon, under Rigney’s leadership as mayor, has since backed out of the intermunicipal development plan (IDP), which spelled out how future annexations would take place.
But beyond expressing his surprise, Rigney said he wanted to wait for the next joint council meeting between St. Albert and Sturgeon County before he says anything further. The date for that meeting is not known.
“Before I discuss this further publicly, we do need to meet with St. Albert, to see if we’re barking up the wrong tree,” Rigney said.
Since the April 30 vote, Mayor Nolan Crouse has cautioned both councillors and city staff to adhere to the wording of the motion passed, which states that ‘council’ will pursue an annexation.
“What I was trying to point out is that our staff aren’t working on this,” Crouse said. “I didn’t want staff to work on something. I just want to make sure that they understood that council would initiate it if we’re going to do anything.”
