In a 4-2 vote in June of 1998, city council authorized placing a question on the upcoming municipal election ballot about whether or not the city should ban video lottery terminals from the community. The city had received approximately $4.7 million in the three years prior through lottery funding, of which 73 per cent came from VLT revenue. Voters would also see Paul Chalifoux’s name on the ballot as the alderman announced he would seek the mayor’s chair in October.
The following June was an explosive month. Approximately 50 police officers faced off with 300 to 500 Rainmaker Rodeo goers as hundreds of drunken teens started rioting, going so far as to attack the officers. The RCMP called for backup from throughout the Capital region and, using pepper spray to disperse the crowd, arrested and charged six teens and two men. Down at the courthouse, the extortion case against former Protestant school trustee Don Witwicky went to trial. Witwicky was charged after Harry Hole received a letter saying harm would come to family members if he didn’t come through with $2 million. The whole family was placed under surveillance. Officers testified they staked out the drop-off spot where Harry left the briefcases. No one showed up. They returned the next day and watched Witwicky jog around the area several times before going for the briefcases, where he was arrested. Yet in the end, the judge found him not guilty, saying she had reasonable doubt Witwicky had written the letter.
Also that year, local school boards made a national first when they decided to allow police and drug-sniffing dogs to search schools at random for drugs. And in the hockey world, the Saints’ Mike Comrie was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers with the 91st pick.
June of 2000 saw Doug Horner, 39, an agrifood and agricultural feed products company owner and son of former deputy premier Hugh Horner, win the Tory nod to run in the riding of Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert. In June of 2001, Comrie made headlines again when his jersey was featured in the Hockey Hall of Fame as part of an exhibit on the Canadian Junior A Hockey League. The city finally switched on its first two red-light cameras at the intersections of Hebert Road and St. Albert Trail and McKenney Avenue and St. Albert Trail. The RCMP were called into action again after a local man working for Shred-It Canada was charged with stealing provincial exams. Of 47 reported stolen, 45 were recovered at a St. Albert house. Two were allegedly sold for less than $100.
June of 2002 brought a promotion for community and protective services manager Bill Holtby, who became the first city manager hired internally in more than a decade. Tragedy also struck the community when St. Albert’s Daniel Langlois of the band Compromise was killed in a car accident while on tour in Alabama. The following June, 16 bands held a tribute concert in Langlois' memory. An Alabama man was charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter and three counts of criminal assault in relation to the accident.
A bizarre fire revealed a tragic sequence of events in June of 2004. After being called to a house blaze in Braeside, which was extinguished, firefighters found traces of mercury in the garden beds surrounding the home. Later that day, Devon police found the body of the homeowner dead in his car. The man had spent a lot of time panning and digging for gold and mercury was often used in gold extraction. Also that month, the community was saddened by the loss of Bertha Kennedy, who passed away at Youville Home at the age of 95.
A political scandal dominated St. Albert politics in June of 2005 when it was revealed every member of council and their spouses had flown to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland and many on council were planning to claim their spouses’ airfare. As the public backlash continued, each councillor eventually, though some grudgingly, agreed to pay for their spouses’ tickets and council subsequently revoked the policy of paying for spouses on trips.
The Grant MacEwan Griffins announced in June of 2006 they would play their men’s and women’s home hockey games out of St. Albert’s new Performance Arena. After shocking the city by pleading guilty to manslaughter in the death of local realtor Bill Maloney, Lisa Ann McKay received a six-year sentence. She admitted she had been drunk and on drugs the night of the killing and that she had known Maloney for eight years.
A major flood caught the city off guard in June 2007, causing extensive damage to city-owned businesses and residents’ homes. The following June saw the Bocock family, who had been farming just outside the city since 1921, sell 777 acres of land to the University of Alberta for a fraction of the land’s price for a new agricultural and environmental research area. Habitat for Humanity announced it would purchase the 70 Arlington Dr. site from the Protestant board for a building project. But tragedy struck when 16-year-old Mitchell Tanner was killed in a workplace accident at Rona on only his second day on the job.
June of 2009 was all about honours and awards. Jennifer Krempien, three-time Paralympic Games gold medallist in wheelchair basketball, was inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame. Douglas Cardinal, the original architect for St. Albert Place, dropped by for a visit to celebrate the building’s 25th anniversary and its designation as a municipal historic resource. The city hosted 851 special Olympians for the Special Olympics Alberta Summer Games and the city was named the host of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards Gala in 2011.
Snow, rain, wind and cold temperatures led to a “borderline catastrophe” at the Rainmaker Rodeo in June 2010, according to organizer Jim Oscroft, as the weather kept the crowds away. But the biggest news of the month was the guilty verdicts against Syncrude, whose case for allowing 1,600 ducks to land and die on a tailings pond was being heard in St. Albert. A judge found the company guilty on both counts with which it was charged.
Peter Boer is the editor of the St. Albert Gazette.
