White City turns to province for approval to merge with Emerald Park

The Town of White City announced Friday that it’s preparing to submit an application to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board (SMB) to become one community with Emerald Park in the Rural Municipality of Edenwold.

According to town councillor Hal Zorn, this comes after officials from White City and the RM participated in discussions (with the help of mediators from the Ministry of Justice) over the last seven months and no agreement was made.

“Our proposal would unify the urban community of White City and Emerald Park and give us the capacity and opportunity to provide the urban infrastructure and services residents expect in a community of our size,” Zorn said in a media release.

“Our residents, and our friends and neighbours in Emerald Park and the White City area support becoming one community because we can achieve so much more.”

As of right now, White City is mainly residential and Emerald Park houses most businesses in the area.

Throughout the mediation process, officials from the town said they heard from the RM that it wants to keep the communities separated with two governing bodies and the continued division of services.

However, the Town of White City wants the opposite.

“The fact is our town is surrounded by development in the RM. Co-operation and voluntary mediation have not worked. We need to move forward,” Zorn said.

In a statement on its website Friday, the RM called the town’s decision disappointing.

“The RM is disappointed that the town decided to proceed with their unaltered annexation proposal,” the statement read. “The RM remains open and committed to finding solutions and working with our regional neighbours to support growth that is win-win for our region and our communities.”

The RM noted it’s in the process of seeking provincial support to explore some of the options and alternatives to annexation for inter-municipal cooperation and capacity building.

The Town of White City said it plans to submit its amalgamation application to the SMB “in the coming weeks.”