The Amber Valley Community Association may look into reversing their decision to purchase the land the Amber Valley Cultural Centre has sat on since the 1990s.
Community association president Gil Williams was quoted in the Nov. 21 Advocate saying the association decided to purchase the land for $52,000 rather than lease it for 25 years at $32,000.
However, Athabasca-Sturgeon-Redwater MLA Colin Piquette has since clarified the offer was in fact $450 flat for a 25-year lease.
“I thought that, as far as a low cost option, that this would be about the best deal I could get for them,” he said.
Williams said Alberta Environment and Parks had sent a letter in August offering the $53,750 purchase price, or a second option to lease the land for 25 years at $32,000.
Williams said Piquette then called him with a verbal offer after the association had already approved purchasing the land, at the “11th hour” of the deal deadline.
“The $32,000 is what we were dealing with as a board. Colin was trying to explain $300-400, but I was thinking that was his interpretation of the other (offer),” he said. “I thought he was… offering what we had already gotten from the government.”
“We never got anything in writing,” he said. “We talked after we had already decided to purchase the land. He did try to help us, I got to give him that.”
Williams said the association’s decision to purchase the land likely would have been different, if they had known Piquette’s offer was $450 for a 25-year lease. Initially, some board members expressed support for leasing the land, but when Williams said they would pay $32,000 to lease the land for 25 years, “that’s when everybody kind of came together” in the decision to just purchase the land.
“(They) said, ‘Yeah that makes sense,’ and we went ahead with the purchase,” Williams said.
Piquette said “it was a breakdown in communication” and he is currently looking into whether the land purchase can be reversed.
“Despite the best intentions of everybody, the board made their decisions based on – I mean I wasn’t there – but based on this information,” he said. “Now I’m going to see what I can do to see if I can have that option available for them again.”
