The Town of Barrhead are asking County councillors to consider a 50/50 cost share of a proposed storage room for the Barrhead Curling Rink.
County council voted unanimously in favour of postponing any decision until after Municipal Affairs mandated arbitration.
The majority of council considered the town’s request to be an underhanded effort to make them look bad in the press, citing a lack of information in the package provided.
“I was very disappointed when I received this,” deputy reeve Bill Lee said.
“Where are the drawings or the rest of the information? What agreement does the town have with the curling club and the use of their building — who is responsible for the storage room? I don’t know the answers and we need that information. We aren’t puppets of the town. We have to be responsible to our ratepayers with how we spend our money.”
Lee said he believed the decision to go ahead with the storage building was the town’s.
“They made that decision on their own, without our input, and when we get a letter like this, when the mayor knows damn well we can’t accept it, you’ve got to question whether it is a ploy from the town and the mayor to draw us into conflict again. They bake a cake and then blame us for how it tastes,” Lee said.
Coun. Darrel Troock agreed.
“It’s OK to say we’re partners but the reality is they [town] don’t treat us like one,” Troock said, adding if the town and county are truly partners, the county should be invited into the decision-making process at the ground level.
“It drives me crazy. Our issue is not with the curling club because we don’t own the building, the town does. The club went through the proper channels but the town should have sent us drawings, the proposed budget, something more than what we have received. When you come to us after you’ve already made a decision, what do you expect? We work off a budget and our budget has gone down the tubes this year,” he said.
However, not all of council was quick to accuse the town of underhanded behaviour.
“I understand the emotional side of this thing really well,” Coun. Dennis Nanninga said, adding the curling club approached the appropriate municipality in this case.
“I think what we’re actually saying is we can’t consider this without additional information. It feels like we’re always asked to come in after the fact but you know, we’re heading into negotiations with respect to our relationship with the town and I don’t know if this is a good time to say no. My personal opinion is that what we demonstrate, through our actions, is going to have an affect on our relationship with the town, both in the arbitration process and also, in our ongoing operations,” he said.
County CAO Debbie Oyarzun gave councillors options.
“The letter could have been considered for information, as Coun. Troock suggested in a motion early in the discussion, or the letter could have been tabled for a future meeting or council could approve support in some fashion,” she said, adding it did not sound like the latter was possible at this time.
“We’re already contributing upward of half a million to the Town of Barrhead for recreation so to say we don’t contribute is nonsense. It’s a storage building. It’s not like it is the ice plant or anything that will stop them from curling. They may have to take a corner of their available space for storage, but $20,000 for one? I have a bit of a problem with that,” Troock said.
Lee agreed.
“We have an agreement with the town and we are contributing. It increases five per cent annually. But they keep coming back for more,” Lee said, adding the money sent to the town from the county has been put to agreed-upon uses like the Agrena and summer recreation programs.
“We don’t have a problem with that but this is a new project we have not discussed and haven’t said we want to take ownership of. I think, if we give even one penny, it will signal we have agreed to take on another project.”
Coun. Ron Kleinfeldt agreed.
“Maybe this is how the town operates, but to not get the information and request the money? If you did that with your kids, if you treated them the way the town treats us, would you give them money? My answer is no. It seems like they are trying to set us up and just want confrontation so they can go after amalgamation or whatever,” Kleinfeldt said.
