A recommendation for qathet Regional District (qRD) to send a contribution toward Powell River Recreation Complex has been forwarded to the regional district’s finance committee.
At the February 26 regional board meeting, directors from Electoral Areas A, B and C considered a recommendation that those electoral districts contribute $238,244 to City of Powell River for the recreation service.
Electoral Area C director and board chair Clay Brander said that making the contribution was the right thing to do.
“We are working together with the local government of the city,” said Brander. “We have an agreement that has expired, but as a show of good faith, we can move this forward, like the previous five years of the agreement. It would be poor of us not to come forth and offer that amount, especially given that in the three electoral areas that are involved in this, the voters said when we had the referendum that they were heavily in support of Area A, B and C tax dollars going in support of the recreation centre.
“It’s the right way to go and the responsible way to go. With the [qRD recreation] service review, we hope to get an agreement in place this coming year, but to penalize the city, especially since the voters said they want to support it, is the wrong thing to do.”
Electoral Area A director Jason Lennox asked if the contribution was in the qRD financial draft. General manager of financial administration Linda Greenan said most of it was in the budget. She said there was $233,000 allocated in the budget, so the figure in the recommendation would require a bit of an adjustment to bring it to $238,244..
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said what was being discussed was an agreement between qRD and the municipality for recreation funding. He said the first agreement expired in 2023, so it wasn’t in place last year.
“We still don’t have it,” said Gisborne. “We haven’t even had a sit-down conversation with the municipality. I’m not opposed to putting the money aside, so that way, when we do have a sit-down conversation with mayor and council, we can say: this is how much we’ve got on the table for at least this year, and that way, we can move forward.
“One of the reasons why I very much support the principle of the contribution funding agreement is because the funding agreement outlines the amount, and this is what we get locked in for five years. What that means is we don’t have a big argument every year about what the contribution amount is. We come to an agreement, and for the next five years, we move forward.”
Gisborne said he was in support of working with the city to determine what is this year’s contribution. He said he was opposed to the motion to make the $238,244 contribution to the city until there is a conversation with the city.
City director Cindy Elliott said that if the city cannot confirm the budget for the recreation centre and have commitments for revenue that makes sense for the city, it may be required for the city to mitigate that risk by slashing services.
“The community loves our rec centre,” said Elliott. “We are trying to provide good services and the rec centre is a good service. That was the intention and that is what people voted on.”
Brander said it was important for the city to know what it was working with to set its budget for the year.
“This is a no-brainer for me,” said Brander. “The residents of our three areas voted heavily in favour of supporting the rec centre. The numbers in front of us are based on a formula that has been approved in past years for funding this service. In the spirit of working together, which is what the local governments are supposed to be trying to do, we can all benefit. The services of the rec centre are enjoyed by people in all three of our areas.”
Lennox said he supported the recreation complex as well.
“We are all in agreement the recreation complex is important and speaking for Area A, we are prepared to pay our share,” said Lennox. “A lot of points raised that are relevant to the subject will be identified in the service review and that’s where we need to get the answers about sub-regional recreation.”
The board voted to send the matter back to the March 11 finance committee meeting rather than making the contribution to the city’s recreation complex at the board meeting.
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