By Jim Mosher
Friday April 13, 2007
Recreation chair Jackson: Hopes for wide input on rec centre.
Interlake Spectator - WINNIPEG BEACH -- There’s plenty of time to prepare for a public workshop session set to discuss the future of this resort town’s recreation centre. Council has hired a seasoned consultant to lead a Saturday afternoon workshop at the Hamilton Ave. centre May 26.
The session is scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The town wants to hear what citizens see as a future for the rec centre. Once a hockey and figure skating arena, and home for most of its 26-year lifetime to regular bingo, the centre was closed this season. No ice was put in. The closure had been anticipated because the local figure skaters had headed north to Gimli and there was barely a team for hockey.
The loss of its principal clients suggested a full closure was imminent, but the discovery of mold in the basement of the building clinched it. Damage has been pegged at more than $150,000, though the town’s insurer has agreed to pay the bulk of the cost of extensive remediation. The town is on the hook for about $15,000.
What’s left is to complete a vision for the centre’s future. That’s the piece residents -- permanent and the large seasonal population -- are being encouraged to weigh in on.
There is no shortage of ideas -- some grand, some less so. But pulling it all together has yet to be done. Mayor Don Pepe said hiring a consultant is best because it removes any perception that council is driving the process or pulling for a particular option; instead, says Pepe, citizens are in the driver’s seat.
Some have suggested a multi-use building, which could include such things as indoor soccer, tennis and weight room. It is clear to most that the building is an asset. Its replacement value may be as high as $5 million.
What changes to the structure need to be made to accommodate a given use or multiplicity of uses?
Other questions ....
Does the preferred use duplicate or conflict with other uses in neighbouring municipalities?
Who does the centre serve? Aging boomers? The young? Middle-aged? All of the above?
If all of the above, do the refocussed centre’s core services provide equal and affordable access to all age groups?
There are more questions than answers.
And that’s where citizens come in.
Elected officials hope as many as possible answer the call to add their two cents.
“This is the real starting point,” Coun. Pam Jackson, who heads the recreation committee of council, said of the public workshop session. “This is the real jumping-off point.”
Jackson says the workshop will highlight the issues and ideas. Then another session involving individuals and focus groups is expected. The consultant is expected to deliver a final report before summer’s end.
“This is not going to be a year or two in the making,” Jackson told her colleagues at a council meeting last month. “It may be a couple of months.”
Once again, there’s plenty of time to sit around the kitchen table or walk along the lake to discuss what you see as constructive and healthy uses of the centre
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