Letter: Current proposal for 2 pads at Omischl is best, Mayne

Editor's note:

Coun, Mayne's letter is in response to Mike Brideau's previous letter published in BayToday entitled New arena is a hot topic once again.

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Hi Mike, … good to hear from you and especially at such a timely moment as the new Council considers whether to move the current arena proposal forward to tender, or to scrap it, and go back to the drawing board.

For the Council members that have supported the process for almost seven years now, I believe the current proposal for two pads at Omischl is our best way forward, especially given the carbon net zero funding from the federal government that will fund almost half of the cost of the Community Centre, and will best meet our ice sports needs and put us in standing as an environmental leader in constructions practices in the province.

The construction of two regulation-size ice pads should also help improve our competitiveness in attracting tournaments, which in turn should help the restaurant and hotel businesses in the south end of the City.

In 2017 Councillors Mark King, Derek Shogren, Daryl Vaillancourt and myself looked at a number of locations around the community with engineering staff and the Omischl location was selected, and supported by the previous council, as there was ample room for parking, future expansion, it will support other existing sports in the park, and will be fully serviced with water, sewer, and transit. 

At the same time, it will not add to parking or traffic pressures that some of the other considered locations may have created, nor will it take away from other existing green space activities that are highly valued in our community.

This week’s Report To Council is an important next step in bringing the current information on price and funding to the new Council and I am optimistic we will be able to move to the next step which should be moving to tender the project.

With almost 14 initial contract responses, which have now been narrowed down to about 7 pre-qualified bidders, I think we can also expect the construction proposals to be competitive for this project.

As has already been mentioned the proposed federal funding for this project, at almost half of the construction cost, is unprecedented and something that I feel few communities would walk away from.

All the best, appreciate your support for the new Community Centre and am pleased to keep in touch on this issue.

Thanks,

Chris Mayne

Vice Chair Infrastructure & Operations

Editor's note: a Special Committee meeting of Council will take place this evening at 5 p.m. in the council chambers regarding the Community and Recreation Centre update.

See: City staff makes case to go ahead with arena project

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