The Town of Westlock has earmarked land, and will pen letters of support to the Westlock Community Enhancement Society for its proposed $550,000 outdoor splash park, but say the project won’t become a reality unless the other area municipalities are on board for operational costs.
At their May 13 meeting, councillors voted 6-0 — Coun. Curtis Snell was absent — to tentatively set aside Eastglen Park as the site for the park and will author a letter to provincial Community Facility Enhancement Program in support of the non-profit group’s grant application, as well as a separate letter of support to them in their ongoing fundraising efforts.
“Without firm commitments from our municipal partners and without having that discussions with our municipal partners, a ‘Maybe we’d love to contribute’ really doesn’t mean anything when the project is completed. At the end of the day the town will be the owner of this facility and will be accountable for the costs,” said Coun. Murtaza Jamaly, noting that with a young daughter he sees the benefits of the park.
“We’re working diligently with our municipal partners on regional collaboration and our intermunicipal collaborative frameworks, but we’re still a long way away from deciding funding agreements for our existing rec facilities.
“Without that essentially we’d be moving on a project that we have no certainty that our municipal partners will contribute on and I think it’s unwise for us to do that. We’ve done that in the past and we’re still paying the bill on a large facility where we received zero (capital) dollars in municipal partner contributions. It’s just not wise.
“Without (a) joint operating (agreement) the town won’t foot the bill. At least from my opinion the town can’t feasibly foot the bill and pay for another rec facility on the backs of the (town) taxpayer.”
Council echoed Jamaly’s fears, as mayor Ralph Leriger said they have land they can commit, but need the costs to be shared.
“One of the concerns we often hear from residents and taxpayers is that we have lots of rec facilities — currently I think something like 24 per cent of our budget is recreation based which is more than public works,” said Leriger. “As a community we pay a significant amount in recreation and people are aware of it and many of the users aren’t contributing towards it and people are concerned about that and those are legitimate concerns.
“I hope you understand our reluctance to go all in on a $550,000 project that so far … not saying there’s not been effort, but you’ve (raised) roughly $5,000 for a project with a potential $550,000 capital cost.”
Added Coun. John Shoemaker: “We pay for a lot of the cost for recreation 100 per cent by ourselves. And if it’s going to be another one where the town is paying 100 per cent then I’m totally against it. But if our municipal partners want to come in and are in for half, I’m all for it. But no way we’re paying 100 per cent.”
Society member Kerri Lesyk told council they’ve approached Westlock County, Village of Clyde, Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken and MP Arnold Viersen seeking letters of support for their CFEP application and were told that when the town is on board, they’d put pen to paper. CFEP, which is a matching-grant program, has two funding streams, a small and a large, with the maximum under the small set at $125,000.
So far the society, a collection of 11 eager moms, have raised about $5,500 via a number of small fundraisers and are aiming to ramp up their fundraising efforts and hope to net $100,000 a year through a variety of sponsorship packages, donations of benches or even a gazebo and matching grants — she noted so far they’ve put in 300 volunteer hours, which at $15 per hour equals $4,500.
“They’ve all said that once the town is on board, they’ll come on board,” said Lesyk, who noted she’s a county resident. “The county has said that they’d love to speak to you and Clyde as well. They all said they’d love to contribute. The county should contribute, we should all be one. However I couldn’t get an answer. I did try for you guys.”
Site specifics
The proposed facility includes a 2,500 square-foot splash park, dry park and washrooms, plus a parking lot.
While Eastglen has been selected for now, there’s a possibility that the Rotary Spirit Centre could be the final home, noted Leriger.
“With the tower down it’s a much bigger piece of land. There’s an awful lot of room there,” he said, noting town census data shows a lot of kids in that area as well.
Belvedere Park, which had been initially proposed as a possible site, if off the table — Lesyk said some of the negative feedback they’ve received centred around that proposed location.
Acting CAO Simone Wiley said they done some research on operating costs, but was hesitant to provide a figure as that total would be dependent on a variety of factors.
“Internally our director of community services did some research a while ago when this group first formed of operationally what that would look like … actually we even did it on our own for budget discussions of bringing it up to council if the town should pursue this. It was determined at that time due to capital and operational, that we weren’t going to do it at that time,” said Wiley.
“It varies quite a bit depending on the type of system that’s put in. Whether they (water fixtures) run continuously, or run and stop. And how many of them are there? There’s a lot of different factors. I hesitate to throw out a number, but when you look at maintenance, you’ve got a surface that needs to be maintained and all these fixtures, plus washrooms, garbage cans and a parking lot.”
