The Westlock Foundation’s requisition — the money it gets from its four member municipalities — has been announced, and for the second straight year is more than $1 million.
The question that needs to be asked is “why?”
Why is it the requisition is above $1 million when only two years ago it was less than half that?
The answer to that question, as we have been told, is that the foundation wanted to pay off the loans taken out to build the Pembina Lodge expansion faster. We acknowledge that is laudable, as it will likely result in the member municipalities forking out less money over the long haul.
Yet, despite that rationale, more questions remain. And those questions pertain directly to the Pembina Lodge expansion itself.
And one has been circulating around ever since it opened — was the expansion necessary?
This may sound like sacrilege in a community like Westlock, where seniors make up a large percentage of the population, but it’s a question that needs to be asked.
Part of the rationale for building the Pembina Lodge expansion was because the waiting list to get into either the Pembina or Smithfield lodges was a mile long.
The expansion was needed to get those people who were waiting for a space into one of the new spaces. If that were true, why were 45 of the 128 rooms in the combined Pembina Lodge empty as of Jan. 17, 2014?
Why were we told the demand so far outstripped the supply that new supply was needed, and that when the new supply came online, the demand seemingly dried up?
Then there is the issue of staff levels being too high for the actual demand. Now, obviously the foundation had to have adequate staffing in place in case the expansion filled up as had been hoped.
But the staffing issue comes back to whether or not the expansion was needed, or at the very least whether an expansion of that magnitude was necessary. Rumours have abounded that many people put themselves on the waiting list so they would have a room for when they were ready to move in, but not for when the expansion opened.
How difficult would it have been to survey those on the waiting list to learn their intentions? That simple act could have saved taxpayers millions.
