Any chills that ran through the audience watching this month’s performances of The Drowsy Chaperone may have come from more than a good show.
While working on the Nancy Appleby Theatre’s ducts, a repair person discovered there was no insulation in the roof, Multiplex manager Dustin Pysyk told the Athabasca Regional Multiplex Society at their June 19 meeting.
“I can’t believe no one ever noticed,” Pysyk said.
The fact was front and centre of a discussion around funding repairs for the theatre, after which the society passed Town of Athabasca Coun. Shelly Gurba’s motion to repair the sidewalk, roof, insulation and lighting. These repairs will cost $31,000.
To pay for them, the society will need to shift around its already-allotted expenses. Earlier this year, they discovered that the much-anticipated sports simulator they had planned to purchase with grant money would be a fire hazard. They also are not going to purchase bumper cars.
Instead of buying the simulator, the society now plans to change the grant application, which comes from the Community Facility Enhancement Fund, to purchase a $35,000 set of basketball hoops they had previously included in their budget. The society can then spend that budgeted money on the theatre.
Mayor Roger Morrill and town Coun. Tim Verhaeghe voted against the motion to allot funds this way.
Morrill said the decision was a knee-jerk reaction, and called for the society to arrange a professional inspection of the theatre and apply for more grants to fund repairs.
“I’m seeing ‘squeaky wheel got a little bit of grease’ here, but that’s all I’m seeing,” Morrill said. “I don’t see a real fix in play … (The theatre) needs a comprehensive plan before we start to do things.”
Athabasca County Coun. Warren Griffin argued that a broken sidewalk could be a liability and that the Multiplex could save on their heating bill by adding insulation.
Because any of the Multiplex’s budgeted capital expenses must be approved by both town and county councils, the motion went before town council June 20 and was passed. Pysyk said county council passed the motion as well.
