BONNYVILLE – The MD of Bonnyville council has voted in favour of discussing the possibility of partnering with the Town of Bonnyville to design, construct and raise funds for a new aquatics centre at the Bonnyville and District Centennial Centre (C2).
On Jan. 18, Bonnyville Town council passed a motion that supported, in principle, the construction of a new aquatics center that hinged on grant funding as well as a partnership agreement with the MD of Bonnyville for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of a new facility.
RELATED STORY: The Town of Bonnyville Council supports the construction of a new pool ‘in principle’
The motion to begin talks with the Town on the topic of a new pool passed 4-3, with Councillors Dana Swigart, Darcy Skarsen, Don Slipchuck and Mike Krywiak voting in favour.
However, it was clear after a lengthy discussion by council that there were concerns with the idea of partnering on a large and costly aquatic facility that would likely be joined to the C2.
Coun. Fadeyiw brought up the City of Cold Lake’s desire to also construct a new pool in the near future.
On March 4, the City of Cold Lake asked residents to share their thoughts regarding a proposed aquatic centre to be built at the Cold Lake Energy Centre. The City’s administration has planned to do an engagement campaign throughout the month of March on the topic.
If the MD financially partners on a pool in the Town of Bonnyville, there may be a precedent to support a Cold Lake aquatics facility, the MD’s administration pointed out.
With MD residents using facilities in both municipalities, Fadeyiw raised concerns over the feasibility of partnering on the construction and operating costs of two large scale pool facilities in the same region.
“A pool, it's 50,000 people geographically that needs to feed it to be successful. We are looking at $30-40 million per pool, we are looking at a cost of about 20-40 per cent just from the MD. These are just capital costs and we're looking at two pools and at the maintenance side of it on two pools,” said Fadeyiw.
“We roughly have about 4,800 residential farms/households in the entire MD. How can we fund two pools?”
He also questioned if there would be enough patron usage at each facility if there were two built. With the City of Cold Lake seeing a population growth of 4.6 per cent between 2016 and 2021, he suggested if it would be better to invest aquatic dollars towards a Cold Lake facility instead.
"If we're going to invest in a pool, we should invest in Cold Lake," said Fadeyiw. “There has been a lot of MD money invested in and around Bonnyville like the airport, the Kopala building, 911, C2 and Bonnyville golf course.”
Reeve Barry Kalinski suggested that other intermunicipal collaboration agreements and discussions were of greater importance, currently.
"I'm not against any pools, but we really need to sit down and see where our financials (are)... there's a lot of people that are suffering out there and we're just spending money like there is nobody suffering out there. I think we really (have) got to figure out where the money's coming from before we agree to anything,” said Kalinski, making it clear that he would rather not increase taxes if possible.
Community priority
However, the Chief Administrative Officers for the MD and the Town, as well as MD councillors, have received calls from residents wanting to know when the MD’s council will be addressing the creation of a new pool.
The desire for a new aquatics' facility has become an important regional issue for MD, Town and Cold Lake residents.
It was the number one request of service in a citizen survey distributed several years ago and is unlikely to have changed considering the recent and indefinite closure of the Bonnyville swimming pool.
Ultimately, council decided to move forward with talks about “partnering with the Town of Bonnyville on the proposed aquatics centre, subject to a partnership agreement with the Town of Bonnyville for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the new facility, and also subject to successful realization of grant funding from the Provincial and/or Federal Governments to assist in construction costs.”
Funding the project
The MD of Bonnyville was involved with the Regional Aquatic Center Committee and partially funded the initial feasibility study by RC Strategies + PERC and BR2 Architecture firm.
A proposal suggested by the feasibility study presented to MD council on Jan. 19, recommended that for the Bonnyville pool project to be viable, the MD should be financially involved for approximately $8 million in capital costs and 50 per cent of operating costs.
It is estimated that pool operating costs would be approximately $1 million annually. However, these numbers were calculated prior to the latest spike in energy costs.
For council’s consideration, the MD’s administration outlined some of the ways the municipality could fund and operate a new aquatics centre while maintaining current service standards and other operating budget demands.
“Firstly, a general mill rate increase of one per cent, which equates roughly to $680,000 in revenue, could offset additional pool operating costs,” outlined MD of Bonnyville documents.
Other suggestions included creating a separate mill rate for recreation to fund either all or some of the new recreation costs, or they council could reduce spending in other areas to “find” the money to pay for the additional pool costs.
