Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Albert Stella Arena

Albert Stella Memorial Arena January 14, 2015

January 14, 2015 - For Immediate Release – The Municipality of Crowsnest Pass has completed its investigation into the health and safety concerns related to the Albert Stella Memorial Arena (ASMA).  As a result, a remediation plan and budget has been prepared that will allow the facility to safely remain open for the next 2 years.
At the Council meeting of January 13, Council approved the proposed remediation plan and contract in the amount of $61,845 plus GST.  The remediation work has already commenced and portions of the work will continue into the spring.  However, the majority of work will be completed quickly and public use of the facility is expected to resume over the next 2 - 3 weeks.  Once this short term solution is implemented, the Municipality will need to actively plan for the future of the facility. 
 The Municipality thanks the public and user groups for their patience during this short-term closure.  For more information please contact Lyle Hannan, Director of Community Services at (403) 562-8833. 
Note: It's important to note that the above press release and the actions of council last night only deal with a short term solution (Two years) to the issues within this facility. The full facility evaluation report is posted at the address below, it is a real eye opener.

http://www.crowsnestpass.com/public/download/documents/9193


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

When are people here going to realize that we can't continue to pay for everything? We continue to keep facilities running that are under-utilized, heavily subsidized and falling apart just because a small number of users cry loud enough and because no one has the political strength to say no. This council is no different. Study after study tell us to rationalize facilities and yet we keep pumping money into them. Shameful waste of tax dollars.

TransparencyCNP said...

Anon 3:47
I can't form an opinion because Council has decided to keep the facilities report secret (= not voted to make it public). Also, I have not seen information on the number of users and how much of the cost of each facility is paid for by user fees vs. tax subsidies. Is that because CNP has not compiled that information, or because they are not telling us?

Crowsnest Pass Home said...

Transparency CNP first of all the report is not secret the link is at the bottom of the post.
The numbers you are talking about are part of the budget process, they are being made public every Thursday between 2-5pm as we work through that process. These meeting are open to anybody that wishes to attend.
I would expect that once the budget process is over there will be all kinds of information coming out.
As far as recreation facilities being paid for by user fees versus tax subsidies. You will be hard pressed to find a Recreation facility any where that is paid for without tax subsidies.

TransparencyCNP said...

Crowsnest Pass Home 9:55
Oops, I skimmed your last paragraph too fast.

Are these "Council Meetings"? I don't see them advertised on the website.

Some of the numbers I am interested in should be in the $90,000 "Recreation Feasibility Study". Do we have that report yet?

Crowsnest Pass Home said...

These are Budget meeting which are scheduled http://www.crowsnestpass.com/
there is one this Thursday Jan 22 and next Thursday Jan 29 both at 2-5pm.

TransparencyCNP said...

Crowsnest Pass Home 3:21
"These are Budget meeting ..."

The reason I asked is, there are different rules for conducting "Council Meetings" vs. "Council Committee Meetings". I don't see a "Budget Committee" listed on the website, so these must be "Council Meetings". If so, they should be advertised as required by the MGA. If you wanted to go beyond this minimum legally required level of transparency, you could publish agendas so people could attend meetings of interest to them.

We had this issue with the previous council where all discussion happened in unadvertised "Policy Committee" meetings. I could not even find out who was on this committee.

Also, the rules on conflict of interest are very different for council vs. committees.