Town shows support for regional recreation

“Administration feels because our residents use a lot of these facilities, we feel this is something that we need to agree upon,” town CAO Ash Alam said.

Alam noted in his report, in return the city will provide support for the town’s truss bridge maintenance work for the next five years, with contributions starting at $19,735 in 2023, with incremental annual increases, up to $28,044 in 2027.

The majority of town council voted in favour of the proposal, with only Coun. David George and Deputy Mayor Shelley Boutin-Gervais opposed. Boutin-Gervais chaired council’s meeting as Mayor Ames Leslie was unable to attend.

Boutin-Gervais believed the yearly increase was too much.

“Personally, I think that the amount we’re contributing, the $20,000 additional each year, in my mind, is a bit steep,” she said. “With that being said, I realize the cost of everything is going up. They are contributing some money back to us for the truss bridges… I guess it offsets it a bit. But at the same time, I think it’s a very large amount increase every year.”

Coun. Judy Pruden said she believed the proposal was a good plan to support regional recreation.

Coun. Alexis Christensen was also among those in favour of the proposal.

‘As Councillor [Judy] Pruden said, this has been a long time coming,” she said. “[There was] a lot of discussion around this… I do know many residents who use the different facilities. Maybe it’s our small part. At least in five years, we won’t have to worry about it.”

When reached by battlefordsNOW, Mayor Ames Leslie said discussions around the proposed agreement have been taking place for the past year and a half.

“The cost of running the [recreation complex’s] facilities over in the city continually increased for them,” he said. “We had been contributing on a 10-year agreement to some of the structural side of it all. We had not necessarily been contributing from an operational perspective from the Town of Battleford.”

Leslie added that a lot of town residents do take advantage of these facilities.

“As anybody knows, with the recreational facilities you never make more money than you spend with half of them. You do it as a positive aspect to your community amenity,” he said. “So council has been going back and forth with the City of North Battleford and their council as to an appropriate level of contribution to help support the increase in costs to these facilities.”

Leslie said the average person might believe the ask from the city is significant. But considering the city will also provide annual support to help maintain the town’s truss bridges it will make a difference.

“What feels like a $20,000 a year increase [from the town] is not exactly true, as the city is going to contribute to the maintenance of the bridge starting this year…,” Leslie said. “That really offsets that $20,000 increase. There is kind of a give and take through the communities. And, I think it’s a really good sign that our communities are working together on some regional projects to make it beneficial for all of our people of the Battlefords.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow

by Angela Brown

Town shows support for regional recreation

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