As a man with over a decade serving the MD of Bonnyville, Reeve Ed Rondeau is ready to step down.
After a total of 22 years in municipal politics and three years as a school board trustee, Rondeau is ready to retire.
“It's time for a change in my life,” he said. “I want to have a little bit of me time, and I think the best me time I have left is right around the corner.”
Rondeau will finish his current term as reeve, but residents will not be seeing his name on the ballot for the upcoming municipal election.
He plans on spending more time with his family, and maybe pick-up a few hobbies.
“To just take life easy,” laughed Rondeau. “To be very honest, I think you always have to know when enough is enough and when it's time for change, and right now I believe it's time for change.”
After semi-retiring young, Rondeau knew he needed to keep himself busy, and as someone who has always enjoyed being involved in the community, started his career in municipal politics.
“I really enjoyed working in a community in a leadership and political role, so that's what I did,” Rondeau said.
Serving as a councillor for the Town of Bonnyville for nine years, he moved into a different role as a trustee for the Catholic school board. After three years he decided to run for the MD of Bonnyville Council.
He spent one term as a councillor for the MD, and then moved into his role as reeve where he would spend the next 10 years.
“I think I've done almost everything I have wanted to do. For the most part this council has been very effective in bringing changes about to the MD,” Rondeau expressed.
Some of those changes have been what Rondeau described as his greatest achievements.
This includes the purchase of construction equipment so the MD could maintain and build their own roads.
“We took a municipality and we have improved the roads. The opportunity to improve the roads was there and we capitalized on it,” said Rondeau.
But that's not all he managed to accomplish in his years as reeve. Rondeau also helped maintain and improve multiple community buildings throughout the MD, approve an Intermunicipal Development Plan agreement with the Town of Bonnyville, put the long-discussed annexation with the City of Cold Lake to rest, granted 4 Wing Cold Lake freedom of the MD, and assisted in starting the regional waterline project.
Rondeau compared the approval of the waterline, which will bring clean water to thousands of residents, to winning the lottery.
“You buy a ticket, you have the hope of winning, but you don't go home saying you're going to win… It was like that, you kept working at it and hoping that your efforts would come to fruition and in this case they did, and that's unbelievable; it's great,” he expressed.
When first getting into politics Rondeau tried to keep his personal objectives out of it and went in with a mindset that it was to serve the residents of the MD.
“One of my goals was that I wanted to make sure that the MD preserved its autonomy. That was very important back then and it still is today,” he said.
“We've been able to do that. There are still people out there that would like very much to take over the MD of Bonnyville and make it a part of their government. We fought that, and I would continue to fight that for as long as I could. Not even being in a political position I would still fight it, because I think that we have a right to our autonomy. We have a different way of doing business than an urban municipality, therefore we have to retain that autonomy.”
With that in mind, Rondeau expressed that just because that was one of his objectives, it didn't mean he wasn't all for lending a helping hand. He understood that as a council it was important to help some of the smaller communities within the MD.
After holding his position as reeve for 10 years, Rondeau recognizes that he has made a few slip-ups along the way.
“Did I make mistakes? Of course, but I still did a good job and (residents) are happy. It's not just me though, it's a council, and together we did a good job. That's reflected in our roads, the things we did like our water and our buildings,” said Rondeau. “Sometimes you like to think that you did these things with the greatest of wisdom, but these things just happen. There's an opportunity and you start talking about it, and then this little thing leads to a bigger thing and then a bigger one.”
As a word of advice for anyone running, Rondeau said they should keep in mind that council is about unity.
“The next reeve, whomever that is, the best advice I can give them is that your job as a reeve is to make sure that you have a good functioning council. You do that not by bringing your own agenda to the table, but by bringing their agenda to the table,” he said. “You have to make sure there's some collaboration between councillors. They can't just be concerned about their ward, although that's important, they have to also be concerned about the MD as a whole. That's the reeve's job. He has to be concerned about the MD as a whole.”
To his residents, he leaves a word of thanks, for being not only a wonderful, but also supportive community.
“They have been fantastic. Even when they were taking me to task, usually there was a reason for it. Even then they were good about it. I don't recall in my 10 years ever having a really bad disagreement with anyone,” Rondeau recalled. “I enjoyed every minute of it, now it's getting close to the end, and I am starting to get antsy. I'm looking forward to retirement and me time.”
In closing, he left with one last thought.
“I have to say thank you to all of those people because without them, I couldn't have done this.”
