After weeks of back-and-forth, conclusive answers have been found about who owns and is responsible for the Athabasca Performing Arts Centre (APAC) buildings.
After weeks of back-and-forth, conclusive answers have been found about who owns and is responsible for the Athabasca Performing Arts Centre (APAC) buildings.
It turns out that the Town of Athabasca and Athabasca County own the complex jointly, as has been claimed by the town's Mayor Roger Morrill on multiple occasions.
Does this confirmation of joint ownership make the road to fixing the APAC buildings' issues smoother?
It's tempting to be hopeful and think that with a shared legal stake in the future of the Old Brick School, the Nancy Appleby Theatre and the Alice B. Donahue Library both the town and county will be compelled to sit down and formulate a coherent plan for the future of APAC.
But the reality is that new knowledge about who owns the buildings will not change anything if there is not a strong desire to do so from the town or county.
For example, the ownership of the Old Brick School has never been in doubt, and yet it has remained mostly vacant since 2013. The town and county did come together to deal with the school's asbestos issue, but that was a matter of safety and the building has remained in a holding pattern ever since.
Furthermore, the school, the library and the theatre are all controlled under the Athabasca Regional Multiplex Society, and that committee has members from both the town and county anyway. Both parties have been at the table for years with the ability to take APAC in whichever direction they want, and until recently, very little has been done to determine what ARMS' mandate should be regarding the complex.
There has been lots of discussion in recent weeks about both councils meeting to discuss what the future of APAC should be, but no dates have been set and there is no concrete agenda in place.
Let's move forward with this. Really. The status quo can be a comfortable place, but the library, brick school and theatre are treasures in the community. They should be championed and developed to their full potential, so our local artists can reach theirs.
