14 years ago
In 2010, St. Albert City Council voted 5-2 against streaming future city council meetings on the internet. Despite how online our world is world has become, only 14 years ago it was deemed that the Shaw broadcasts that aired council meetings were good enough, despite meetings often running longer than Shaw would air them for. The decision angered local council watchers, including Elke Blodgett, who told the Gazette that council hadn’t kept its promise of better communication. Implementing the service back then would have cost the city an estimated $30,000 per year, which some felt was too high a price. St. Albert city council eventually began web streaming council sessions a year later, starting on Dec. 5, 2011.
30 years ago
In 1993, students at St. Albert High School lobbied Alberta Human Rights Commissioner Jack O’Neill to discuss issues relating to children’s rights. Twenty-three Grade 12 students attended, and Robyn Connelly opened the meeting by saying Alberta was the only province that didn’t recognize the 1989 United Nations convention on the Rights of the Child. She also expressed a wish for the government to implement policies to address issues such as poverty, counselling programs, and protection of the abused. O’Neill told the students he would include their comments in a report to the provincial government.
40 years ago
In December 1984, 73 teachers of St. Albert’s Protestant schools were set to vote on a strike. The teachers were seeking a 0.8 per cent wage increase in 1984 and a three per cent wage increase in 1985, plus benefits. Don Witwicky, chairman of the board of trustees' negotiating committee, told the St. Albert Gazette the board’s position at the time was to offer no increase in wages in 1984, and a three per cent increase in 1985. The teachers did vote for a strike in January 1985, walking out for three days during the week of Monday, Jan. 14.
47 years ago
In the dead of winter, Sturgeon County Composite High School opened on Dec. 9, 1977. It was estimated that 400 people braved the -40 C weather to attend the opening, according to Sturgeon School Division assistant superintendent Walter Heppler. While there was initially talk of cancellation as the temperature dipped lower and lower on the day of the opening, it was thought too late to reschedule. Heppler didn't know exactly how many children braved the extreme cold to attend the first day of school on Dec. 10.
