Although its long-term fate remains in flux, the near future of the Westlock and District Community Hall appears to be brighter after town councillors voted to forward nearly $14,000 to pay the hall’s outstanding insurance bill.
Following the Westlock town council committee of the whole meeting on April 15, councillors held a special council meeting to address the hall’s situation, and ultimately voted to advance the hall $13,990 to cover its insurance bills for 2011, 2012 and 2014.
“Due to the risk to the Town of Westlock, the town will pay the outstanding accumulated insurance premiums up to and including 2014 for the Westlock and District Community Hall Society,” said mayor Ralph Leriger.
He added the town has notified the hall board of a section in the memorandum of agreement from 1991 concerning the lease of the land on which the hall sits, which states the hall society is responsible for paying the premiums to have in place building, content and general liability insurance.
“Therefore it is the expectation that the Westlock and District Community Hall Society repay the Town of Westlock in full,” Leriger said.
Town manager Dean Krause said there is no set timeline for when the hall society is expected to repay the town.
Leriger said councillors decided to advance the money to the hall society as a way of mitigating the risk to the town should an incident occur at the hall.
“Council felt it was just not something we could comfortably leave any longer,” he said, adding having an uninsured facility “places the town, and thusly the citizens, at a financial risk.”
Since the hall sits on town land, if an incident were to occur, it’s foreseeable the town could be named in a lawsuit. The money to pay the insurance will come out of the town’s operating budget, Leriger said.
Krause said that means one of the town’s budget line items will end up over budget, “but the expectation is that it’s paid back, so hopefully at year end it’s balanced out and doesn’t affect any of the town’s operations.”
The issue of the hall’s finances is a long-standing source of discussion, and one that came to the fore at the March 11 Westlock County meeting and the April 8 town council meeting.
At those meetings, councillors were presented with a request from the hall society for assistance covering the hall’s insurance bills, as well as a request for help paying the electricity bill.
The county had opted to approach the 2013 Alberta 55 Plus Games Legacy Committee about allocating $5,000 to the hall as a form of assistance when presented with the request.
Town councillors opted to bring the matter forward again at the April 15 committee of the whole meeting, at which time they hoped to have more information.
