Week of April 18, 2024
- comms957
- Aug 15
- 2 min read
40 years ago (April 18, 1984)
“Annexation warnings were not idle talk”
Broken promises, higher taxes, loss of services, and slower emergency services became the realized reality within two years of the 1982 annexation of Division No.1 of Strathcona County by the City of Edmonton. Forty years ago former residents of what was Division No.1 complained about the results of the annexation. The City of Edmonton spent a large sum of money in 1981 promoting the annexation, promising better traffic control, lower taxes, as well as cheaper and more efficient delivery of services. A few in the county had warned these were false promises. These warnings turned out to be true as taxes skyrocketed and some property owners were not being provided city services such as water, sewage, transit, and garbage removal despite paying taxes for them. Many also faced longer response times from emergency services, police, fire and ambulance, than two years earlier when they were part of Strathcona County. The newspaper perspective piece on the subject called for one of two courses of action: fighting for reasonable tax levies, or pressing for the provincial government to reverse the annexation. Do you think either happened?
30 years ago (April 21, 1994)
“Council moving quickly to fend off any annexation plan”
Ten years later talk of annexation by the City of Edmonton was back on the front page of the Sherwood Park News. This time it was the actions of the province that was putting fears of annexation in people’s minds. In 1994 the province repealed the County Act which imposed new health and school board border, forcing municipalities to regionalize services. Strathcona feared that changes to municipal boundaries would follow. In an effort to prevent this council began trying to form health and education partnerships with other rural communities. Thirty years ago there was also talk of disbanding the county system and converting to a municipal district in light of the changes. Not long after, that change was made. You can learn about land annexations and more in the Strathcona County Museum’s new exhibit “Welcome to Strathcona.”
