County postpones decision on Town 's latest pool proposal

County of Barrhead has postponed making a decision on the Town of Barrhead’s latest pool proposal after a presentation on Monday, July 14, 2014.

The two municipalities received a presentation from Michael Winder of Sprung Instant Structures. Winder explained some of the benefits of his company’s structures as it related to a pool facility. Both Councils listened to the hour-long presentation and then moved on to their Joint Council meeting.

During the meeting, both Councils discussed the current pool situation. Councillors went through a variety of topics including the operational costs of a new facility. After an hour-long debate, neither side could come to a solution regarding the operating costs so the meeting was adjourned.

After the adjournment, Town Council decided to hold a meeting of their own to discuss their next option regarding the pool. Town Council decided to write a letter to the County stating their concern.

In the letter, the Town stated, “At our Joint Council Meeting on July 14th in your Council Chambers I informed you that your letter of July 4th terms were unacceptable. As stated last evening, in order for the Barrhead Regional Aquatic Centre to proceed it is essential that the County contribute 40 per cent of the net annual operating costs for the life span of this facility,” wrote Town of Barrhead Mayor Gerry St. Pierre. “If the County chooses not to contribute 40 per cent of the net annual operating costs the project will cease this month.”

The County of Barrhead received the Town’s letter during their Council meeting on Tuesday, July 15 and spent part of the day discussing the letter from the town. The County sent a reply to the town on Thursday, July 17 stating, “Further to your letter of July 15, the Council of the County of Barrhead, at their meeting of the same date, wishes to advise that we have considered your request for the County of Barrhead to contribute 40 per cent of the net annual operating costs for the life span of the facility. As you are aware, the funding required to operate a swimming pool facility is a heavy financial burden for our whole community,” wrote County of Barrhead Reeve Bill Lee. “Your letter advises that if the County chooses not to contribute 40 per cent of the net annual operating costs, that the project will cease this month. The County Council supports the need for a new pool facility, and as such does not want to see the project completely halted.”

Lee addressed the fact that nothing was done in response to the Town’s July 15 letter.

“We read their proposal and considered it but that is all we did with the Town’s proposal. We have done nothing with their letter, other than come back with a proposal that we look into other more cost-efficient options,” he said.

Mayor St. Pierre shared his feelings on the County of Barrhead’s latest proposal.

“Right now, it is sad. It is really sad and that is all I can say (about it). I have called an administrative briefing for Friday afternoon but I don’t believe we are going to follow-up with the County’s latest letter or make any decisions until our next Council meeting on the 12th of August. I better not comment at this time because I want to make sure all of Council is on the same page. Right now, I am kind of at a loss for words,” said St. Pierre.

St. Pierre explained what he believes is the major stumbling block between the two municipalities.

“We have compromised as much as we can and it is still not working. The County keeps making assumptions that we will achieve 60 per cent recovery from the revenue and that is a standard that has never been achieved. The standard is that people try to achieve 50 per cent but realistically they are around 40 per cent,” he said. “My only comment right now is they just don’t get it. They don’t get the issue at hand and they just don’t understand. I guess they just don’t understand the responsibilities to the ratepayers. In four years, you think the County would have understood that the ratepayers want a pool and they want it to be built and operated as efficiently as possible and that would be our goal.”

Lee explained that the County does not want to get into the staffing side of the operational costs.

“It appears that both Councils acknowledge that the estimated operational costs exceed each individual Council’s ability to meet such financial burdens,” he said. “This is the key thing in our letter. They (the town) wants more money and we keep telling them to downsize and they just want us to pay 40 per cent of net operating costs that we don’t know how much they are going to be. It will be a percentage of an unknown number.”

Lee then addressed the importance of considering the Sprung Structure in his letter.

“As you are aware, another construction option has been presented to both our Councils. We could consider an adjustment to our contribution if consideration could also be given to exploring the Sprung Instant Structures Ltd. Option, or any other viable option,” wrote Lee. “The thing is when the deliberations go back and forth like this, no one is dealing with the real issue. The real issue is the costs are going to be higher than we can handle. It really came to light, when they did that presentation that we should start looking at this option because it could start solving some of our problems. We have an option to solve our problems so let’s look at that option. I think there is an option in front of us that we really need to look at.”

Lee went on to explain the benefits of proceeding with a more cost-efficient pool proposal.

“If both municipalities spend less on the capital portion of the project it will free up more of the money available for operating. From what we can find out, these buildings are more efficient to operate. We have agreed on the capital investment from both Councils. We could find out what this building would cost and then knowing how much capital we have already committed to the project, we could see if there was something else we wanted to put into the project or maybe we could purchase some efficiencies to cut the operating costs down,” added Lee. “If we can build this for cheaper than what we had originally figured, it opens up the option for many different ways to use the money for different things. We could potentially use the extra capital funds to finance operating costs once the pool is built and that is another option.”

Lee said the town knows the County’s position and the County hasn’t changed their stance on the pool project.

“The only thing we can do is what we are elected to do and that is to represent our people in our way of doing things. We don’t want to change our policies that we have followed for years,” concluded Lee.