Fort Macleod’s bid for the $100-million Alberta Police and Peace Officers Training Centre drew on resources and people from every corner of southwestern Alberta.
The effort paid off Wednesday when Solicitor General Harvey Cenaiko awarded the project to Fort Macleod.
“Fort Macleod is poised once again to make policing history,” Mayor Shawn Patience said.
The provincial government announced last year plans to build a new police college at which an estimated 1,500 police and peace officers will be trained each year.
More than 30 Alberta communities responded to the government’s initial call for bids for the college, which is to be built on a site of more than 300 acres and will create an estimated 100 permanent jobs in the community.
“You’ve had great leadership from mayor and council,” Livingstone-Macleod MLA Dave Coutts said. “You’ve had great participation from the community.”
After the initial call for interest came the province’s request for land procurement and the requirement for a comprehensive bid package that identifies a potential site, outlines infrastructure such as sewer and water, and discusses how the community intends to engage the police college in everyday life.
In November 2005 Patience struck a task force of Fort Macleod residents to prepare the bid and address the questions to which the provincial government wanted a response.
The task force developed a huge binder containing information about the site, the community, and how Fort Macleod intended to engage staff and recruits at the police college in everyday life.
The first part of the binder dealt with the request for land procurement- the proposed site and the servicing it requires.
The latter part of the binder is dedicated to community engagement, with photos illustrating life in Fort Macleod and essays discussing such parts of community life as health care, recreation, the commercial and retail sectors, education, and hotel and motel accommodation.
The binder also contained letters of support from more than 30 communities in southwestern Alberta, including those from leaders of the Blood Tribe and Piikani Nation.
The task force then went a step further in its quest to give the package a visual element that will make Fort Macleod’s bid stand out from the rest.
The task force prepared a DVD containing images of Fort Macleod as well as interviews with community leaders and residents expressing their support for the police college being built in Fort Macleod.
Much of the filming and interviewing was done on Santa Claus Parade weekend, and includes images from the rally on Main Street immediately prior to the parade.
The DVD contained interviews with residents, including Alain Dubreuil, Cynthia Temoin, Bob Ripley, Bill Hart and Barb Vallance, as well as community leaders such as Patience and councillors Christine Trowbridge, Brian Reach and Ken Williams.
Concluding the video are interviews with Grade 1 students, who list many of Fort Macleod’s assets, including the Empress Theatre, Fort Museum and arena.
A key component of the bid was put in place Dec. 12, just two days before the bid package was delivered to Edmonton by Patience, economic development officer Gordon MacIvor and councillors Christine Trowbridge and Mike Bourassa.
That was a 320-acre site in southeast Fort Macleod that is the proposed location for the police college. At its Dec. 12 meeting council gave second and third readings to a by-law to rezone the land to police college direct control, from agricultural-industrial.
Fort Macleod residents then turned out in force July 25 when an MLA site selection committee toured the town.
All that work led to the announcement Wednesday at The Fort Museum of the North West Mounted Police.
“It’s very difficult, knowing at the onset there would be one selected site and 29 non-selected sites,” Solicitor General Harvey Cenaiko said. “It was a very exhaustive and extensive (process).”
Cenaiko stressed the process followed strict legal guidelines.
“We can only have one winner, so congratulations Fort Macleod.”
