Now the waiting begins.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 24, Chuck Hambling and Manfred John officially handed in a petition asking Barrhead Town council to reconsider the current aquatic centre project.
Hambling started the petition drive on June 10 because he was concerned that the town and the residents couldn’t afford to take on a project the size and scope of what is currently proposed for the aquatic centre.
He said that although he was in favour of having a swimming pool the town couldn’t afford to pay its portion of the construction costs of the estimated $13 million as well as shoulder the majority of the facility’s operating costs.
In December, the town and county of Barrhead agreed to contribute $5 million each towards the construction cost of the pool with the shortfall to be made up through fundraising and other private and government grants. The agreement between the town and county also stated that the county would contribute what it deemed was fair towards the facility’s operational budget.
Hambling said in order to get the town to reconsider the cost of the aquatic centre project the petition organizers needed 443 Town of Barrhead residents’ signatures. The petition submitted on Wednesday, June 24, had 511 signatures.
Martin Taylor, Town of Barrhead’s chief administrative officer, who accepted the petition on behalf of the town, said that before he makes a decision if the petition is valid he has 30 days to verify the authenticity of the signatures.
Mostly to ensure that they are the signatures of the people listed on the petition, that they live in the Town of Barrhead, and are of legal age and that they did sign the petition.
Taylor said this process will likely take two to three weeks to complete. If Taylor decides the petition is valid and that all the criteria was met, he will bring the petition to town council for a decision.
“Council will either decide to cancel the borrowing bylaw outright or they will pick a date for an election on whether the public would like to see the pool project proceed,” he said.
If council decides to hold a special election, Taylor then has 90 days to choose an election date.
Hambling is confident that the petition will be considered valid.
“We made sure to ask everyone before they signed the petition that they were: a) a resident of Barrhead, b) a Canadian citizen. c) a resident of Alberta for at least six months and were 18 or older,” he said, adding the final question petition volunteers asked was if an election in Barrhead was held today, would you be eligible to vote.
