(file photo/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

COVID-19 impact

City asks area communities for COVID-19 support for rec. centres

Oct 4, 2020 | 4:12 PM

The City of North Battleford is asking its neighbours if they will offer some of their COVID-19 Safe Restart Canada Plan funding to help with the costs of the city’s major recreation centres.

These include facilities that are used by the region like the Battlefords CO-OP Aquatic Centre and the NationsWEST Field House.

“We’re not talking the parks or local-type rec. facilities, but the bigger major facilities like the pool, the Field House; they are quite expensive to run,” city manager Randy Patrick said.

Any funds received from regional communities would benefit the operational costs of these facilities that have taken a hit due to COVID-19 restrictions, with revenues down significantly and expenses up.

Municipalities were awarded funding on a per capita basis through the federal Safe Restart Canada Plan.

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North Battleford was allocated $853,947 of the $70,000,000 available to the province. But Patrick said the city’s finance director confirmed that is not sufficient to cover the losses for these recreation facilities from the impact of the pandemic.

For the pool alone, the attendance in August was 20 per cent of what it was at the same time in 2019.

“The capacity has been reduced from 500 people at a time to 80 at that particular facility,” Patrick said. “We’re having to run reduced hours to try to keep the cost down. But that is not going to be enough.”

The city is sending a letter to neighbouring communities requesting their support. It also plans to establish a regional advisory committee – a COVID recreation board – with participants from the region to oversee the one-time funding received.

“The objective here is to ensure the sustainability of regional recreation facilities that happen to be located in the city,” Mayor Ryan Bater said. “Essentially, we are asking the rest of the region to be part of an effort to ensure that sustainability, by allocating part or some of the federal Safe Restart money to that effort.”

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW