An application to have last October’s Village of Acme Municipal Election results overturned in Court of Queen’s Bench has failed.
    In her decision via tele-conference with the Drumheller courthouse April 29, Justice K.M. Horner declined to set aside the election, and dismissed the application in its entirety.
    About 30 people appeared at Queen’s Bench to hear the decision.
    Acme resident Leona DeKoter, representing the group of Acme voters that filed the application to nullify the election, voiced her disappointment and frustration at the Justice’s decision.
    “That’s a slap in the face to every resident of the community - we thought the law would protect us. That’s not what I expected at all.”
    “I am extremely disappointed. The majority of residents in the community felt we didn’t have an election that was truly the will of the people.”
    DeKoter argued at the April 3 hearing the cumulative effects of all the irregularities could potentially have affected the outcome of the election.        “About the only thing correct in the election was the hours the polling station were open,” said DeKoter.
    Reasons the group of residents wanted to set aside the election include the validity of Ross Gilmore as a candidate, the improper printing of candidates names on the ballot alphabetically by first name instead of last, improper notice of advance polling, scrutineer placement on voting day,  placements of election booths, and voter identification issues.
    DeKoter said the group will be looking to appeal Justice Horner’s decision.
    “There are a number of grounds for appeal.”
    “This judgement shows the people who run it (election) can do whatever they want.”
    One of the remedies DeKoter was seeking was an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Because Mr. Alderdice (Acme’s Chief Administrative Officer and Returning Officer) admitted the staff of the election discussed the ballot order for several days,” she said.
    Acme Mayor Bruce McLeod estimates the Village’s court costs in responding to the application at close to $25,000.
    “The Village of Acme Council, the current one, did not want to do this,” said McLeod.
    “They were asked to do a judicial review on this, and we’d said no.”    
    “We said we believed similar to what the judge has ruled here - that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that the elections were unfair or that people couldn’t vote for who they wanted to.”
    “I look at it this way - the Village of Acme Council and staff  have both been vindicated.”

    Penny and Bert Dekeyser had an unexpected visitor for two days at the end of April.
    They rescued a great horned owlet, that was still too young to fly, near the family farm in Verdant Valley.    
    “My husband saw it running down the ditch and wasn’t sure what it was. Then he stopped the truck and looked, and it ran into the hedge,” said Penny Dekeyser.
    Bert went to get Penny, and a pair of leather gloves.
    They think the owl must have walked to the ditch, because it was nowhere close to a nest.
    They captured the little owl  and housed it in a dog kennel, and Penny contacted the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre.
    “In the meantime, we fed it little chunks of steak cut in really small pieces on a tooth pick and then water through a medicine syringe,” Penny explains.
    She said the owlet would hiss and clack its beak at her when she put her hand in the kennel, but when it started getting food and water, would come right to the edge of the cage and just sit and look at her, or eat.
    Penny took the orphaned owl to the wildlife centre after two days because the centre warned her the little owl risked getting sick.
    “When I spoke to them they said it couldn’t eat steak for very long because that wasn’t their diet -  they needed to have regurgitated mice for their diet or they would get some kind of disease.”
    When Penny took the owlet to the wildlife centre, staff told her it was a healthy baby owl.
    They also let her know there was a great horned owl at the centre that would act as a surrogate parent for the orphan.
    Staff at the wildlife rehabilitation centre expect the owl to be there through the summer and into the fall, until it can fly well enough and catch mice on its own on a consistent basis.
    Penny plans on paying a visit to the little owl to see how he/she is doing.
    Penny said about thirty years ago, her family nursed a full-grown great horned owl back to health and then released it into the wild.