COVID-19
Perhaps the biggest, most life-changing story of the year, to most people’s chagrin, is the COVID-19 pandemic. And unlike most year-end stories, Westlock people shared this with the rest of the world.
In Westlock, the effects were most closely felt in March 2020, when the government mandated school and business closures. On March 22, 2020, the Town of Westlock declared a state of local emergency and closed all its buildings. Council meetings across the area moved to Zoom.
Seniors lodges restricted visitors, and unlike the rest of the province or the country, have managed to keep COVID-19 out of their residences.
The Westlock Ag Fair was cancelled for the year, CATS cancelled their season, Remembrance Day ceremonies were modified to fit the times. Museums allowed visitors in some capacity but cancelled all their events.
Although the first wave largely wasn’t felt in Westlock, cases started increasing mid-October, when the area recorded its seventh case. By the end of the month, Westlock was placed on the Alberta Health Services watchlist and had 25 active cases of 33 recorded.
This prompted the town to institute a mask bylaw Oct. 28, 2020. They’d rejected one Aug. 10, 2020, opting instead for public education. That month, both McDonald’s and Boston Pizza temporarily closed when staff tested positive for COVID-19.
Schools reopened in September, and by October, at least 11 students tested positive at St. Mary School, R.F. Staples School, and Eleanor Hall School in Clyde. Pembina Hills School Division cancelled all extracurricular activities and got rid of common room furniture. Outbreaks continued into November.
Things turned tragic by the end of November, when an outbreak was declared at the Westlock Continuing Care Centre. Five patients and one staff member tested positive. A man in his 90s died that month.
In December, the area broke 100 recorded cases, most of them in less than two months. Westlock ended 2020 with 136 cases: 21 active, 114 recovered and one death.
BP Cup
After the successful bid in 2017 for the Boston Pizza Cup, the Town of Westlock once again brought Alberta’s top men’s curlers to the Rotary Spirit Centre Feb. 5-9, 2020.
A boost for local sports and local businesses, the Westlock Curling Club’s second run at hosting the tournament was met with applause from town councillors and Curling Alberta.
It also bode well for Brendan Bottcher, Darren Moulding, Bradley Thiessen and Karrick Martin of the Sherwood Park Bottcher rink, who once again took home the trophy, repeating their 2017 victory. They beat the Edmonton Karsten Sturmay rink 7-6 in the final.
“It’s awesome, Westlock is going to have to host more often,” Bottcher said.
The Alberta rink later lost to Newfoundland & Labrador in the Tim Horton’s Brier in Kingston, Ont. In March 2020, making Bottcher a three-time runner up to the Canadian title.
The event was spearheaded by organizing committee chair Stephanie Gervais and more than 200 volunteers: locals, Edmontonians, northerners, all-around curling fans.
“I heard nothing but positive comments from the organizers, volunteers and the curlers themselves … It was a long week for everybody, with lots of extra hours, but by gosh it went really, really well,” said town mayor Ralph Leriger.
108 St. rehab
A provincial grant of $3 million means the Town of Westlock can start construction on the 108 Street rehabilitation this year.
The Strategic Transportation Investment Program grant came through in July 2020 and will cover about half the costs for the $5.6 million project. The rest of the money, CAO Simone Wiley said, will come from federal gas tax funds the town has saved “for a number of years.”
From start to finish, the town expects it’ll take two years to fully rehab the road that leads to the Westlock Terminals, although there are restrictions since they have to ensure access to residential properties and business continuity for the grain facility.
In a video pitch the town released in April 2020 to promote the project, town mayor Ralph Leriger called Westlock’s agriculture sector, and the Terminals by extension, “Alberta’s breadbasket.”
Crime coalition
The three Westlock area municipalities developed their own version of a crime and other notification system similar to BARCC, the Barrhead initiative that’s been lauded for its role in rural safety.
The Westlock and Area Crime Coalition got started late 2019, a project initiated by the Town of Westlock, in partnership with Westlock County and the Village of Clyde.
They rolled out a notification system Dec. 1, 2020. For now, those who sign up can only receive notifications related to municipal business, although those have been sparse over the course of its one month in operation.
Starting in 2021, crime notifications will also be incorporated onto the platform. A link to sign up can be found on the websites of the Town of Westlock, Westlock County and the Village of Clyde. Notifications go out on preferred communications methods like text messages or e-mails, and users can choose what they want to know about from the system.
Town CAO Simone Wiley announced they were working on it during a crime town hall hosted by Westlock RCMP Detachment Staff Sgt. Al Baird in November 2019. At the time, Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken announced a series of measures the government was taking to reduce rural crime, although the residents that attended didn’t seem convinced they’d work.
Rural crime
For some rural Westlock residents, the year started off with a reminder that rural crime continues to be a problem.
At about 4 a.m. the morning of Jan. 13, 2020, a Tawatinaw family woke up with a stolen truck that had been set on fire in their driveway. They didn’t want to be identified, fearing reprisal from criminals, but described sitting terrified “on guard in our house, worried that these thieves were still on our property.”
No arrests were made that night, and the incident, widely shared on social media, revealed the difficulties of rural policing.
2020 also marked the start of rural municipalities contributing to policing costs. They covered 10 per cent of it, and this year the province is asking for 15 per cent. Contributions will rise again in 2022 to 20 per cent, and again in 2023 to 30 per cent.
It’s a “historic” investment, the government said, about $286 million total, all of it covered by rural municipalities and smaller urbans with fewer than 5,000 residents.
Westlock has yet to reap the rewards. Although one member was added to the detachment, it was a vacant position they’d been looking to fill for three years, after Westlock County councillors said they couldn’t afford to pay for the officer anymore.
Homicides
Westlock recorded its second homicide in two years last summer when residents of Westlock Estates buildings found a body in the lobby of one of the buildings June 9, 2020.
After an on-scene investigation involving Major Crimes, and a subsequent autopsy in Edmonton, officers confirmed the man’s death was suspicious. There have been no details released about the investigation since, and no mention made of possible suspects.
Later in the year, the Westlock teenager accused of second-degree murder for the alleged shooting of a 62-year-old man in August 2019 had his charges stayed by a Court of Queen’s Bench judge at the request of Crown prosecutors.
“The charges were stayed because there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction in this matter,” said a communications advisor with Alberta Justice and Solicitor General. Prosecutors have until November to bring the charge back.
The teen’s case was adjourned three times in the Edmonton courthouse since Oct. 2, 2020, until the Nov. 20, 2020 decision. Each appearance, both his lawyer and Crown said they were “assessing the viability of the file,” “considering its proceeding,” or that they were involved in “extensive discussions” about whether or not a trail will happen.
Before COVID-19 hit the province and courtrooms were closed, the teen had a trial scheduled, and a preliminary hearing for July 2020 in Westlock Provincial Court.
No tax increase for town residents
The Town of Westlock managed to keep its tax rate steady for two years in a row.
Councillors were clear this year that COVID-19 meant a tax increase was off the table: “There is no option,” said Coun. Murtaza Jamaly Dec. 14, when the operating budget got council’s approval.
For 2021, they adjusted their transfers to reserves and will use the modest $30,000 surplus from 2020 to balance the books and keep service levels status quo.
Utility fees will go up, however, by an average $14.74 for the year, which includes an increase in storm sewer utilities and waste management.
For the 2020 budget, admin had proposed a 1.95 per cent tax increase in the draft budget. By April 2020, after an endorsement from auditors on the town’s financial state, councillors agreed to bring it down to zero, although mayor Ralph Leriger said it wasn’t prompted by COVID-19 alone.
Instead, he pointed to the “current economic situation,” including the falling price of oil and several bad years in agriculture.
To offset about $100,000 in lost revenue, they limited expenses for travel, training, insurance, supplies and contracted services.
Changing tides at the county
Westlock County has gone through some administrative changes over the course of 2020, starting with the departure of CAO Leo Ludwig in September 2020.
The county hired Rick McDonald as interim CAO in May 2020, when they said Ludwig was taking three months off for “health reasons,” which prompted questions about the CAO’s eventual return. Ludwig extended his leave in August 2020, and a month later councillors announced they accepted his resignation.
Since his departure, McDonald has been making changes to “culture” on the administrative side, which he found lacking, and damaging to employee morale and trust. He concluded he had “nothing disparaging” to say about Ludwig or held any particular opinion on previous CAOs.
Responsibilities were shifted around, roles changed, and departments rejigged last year. This included the departure of director of corporate services Diane Urkow and retirement of Dwayne Keller, manager of transportation, which McDonald said are positions that won’t be refilled.
“It strengthens your organization when employees are healthy, both mentally and physically,” said McDonald during the Budget 2021 deliberations, when these issues were made public.
At that time, the county released some details about a 2018 staff capacity review that, although dated, suggested the 47 full-time employees are not enough to conduct operations. The benchmark is 62 FTE positions.
The county is now in the process of hiring its ninth CAO in seven years. That instability in leadership is something McDonald says has had “widespread negative consequences for staff wellbeing and engagement and success of county programs.”
At the end of October 202, Jared Stitsen took over as reeve, winning councillor votes over previous reeve Lou Hall. Less than a month later, Coun. Fred Slobodian resigned to take a different job, and councillors decided not to hold a by-election ahead of the general one scheduled for Oct. 18.
Fires
A Jarvie landmark was destroyed over the summer, when a blaze the RCMP deemed suspicious burned down the Jarvie General Store.
Neighbours woke up June 1 while the flames were engulfing the century-old structure, leaving little but a scorched wooden brown bear that used to sit at the entrance of the store.
Westlock County firefighters got the call shortly after 4 a.m. and by the time they responded, the bottom floor was already burning.
For nine hours, 26 firefighters were on scene, keeping the blaze away from a nearby fuel tank. No injuries were reported.
In July, county manager of protective services John Biro confirmed that the unusual circumstances of the fire prompted an RCMP investigation into its causes. Westlock RCMP Detachment Staff Sgt. Al Baird confirmed the circumstances were unusual.
In the Town of Westlock closer to the end of the year, firefighters faced two structure fires in one weekend: a mobile home Dec. 18 and Carl’s Auto Dec. 20.
Both causes remain undetermined, and nobody was injured.
“I’m extremely proud of our crews and the work that they have done,” said town fire chief Stuart Koflick.
Skydiver killed
Tragedy struck Edmonton Skydive this summer for the third time since it started operating at the Westlock Municipal Airport: a 36-year-old man from Ontario died while attempting a tricky landing.
At around 2 p.m. Aug. 20, 2020, EMS, RCMP and Westlock County firefighters responded to the scene. STARS had been called in then cancelled once officers on scene confirmed the skydiver was deceased.
RCMP confirmed there was no foul play involved.
Travis McBride’s death was the third skydiving fatality at the airport in five years. In 2015, a 60-year-old man died during the Canadian National Skydiving Championship hosted there in the August long weekend.
A year later, a 52-year-old man died while attempting a “high performance technique,” but couldn’t land properly, police said. Edmonton Skydive was hosting the Alberta Canopy Piloting Circuit at the time.
Parachuting associations in Canada and the US say accidents are very rare, and fatalities the most uncommon. The majority of cases involve experienced skydivers. The American association recorded 13 fatalities in 2018, or 0.0004 per cent of all jumps.
