Aquatic Centre registration soon to be online

Shannon LeClair  

Times Reporter    

 

Councillor Bob Sobol asked administration about the possibility of online registration at the Aquatic Centre. Due to the growth in town there are more and more people wanting to use the facility and have lessons for their children. 

Chief Administrative Officer Dwight Stanford said that people have been lining up outside the Aquatic Centre early in the morning to register for the different programs. 

Stanford also said he just found out on March 19 that the online registration option should be set up and operational by June 1, and is expected to cost between $12,000 and $15,000. 

“The real big problem is there’s not enough time for swimming lessons and we need to set more time, but the problem is after school is when the parents want their kids to take swimming lessons and all that time is pretty well tied up which is making it really awkward,” said Stanford. 

The cost for the online registration site has not been approved yet. Stanford assured council that administration would be bringing it forward for approval. 

 

Facility fees 

Councillor John Rempel requested that council relook at the facility fees being charged to users of the Civic Centre, Family Centre and Aquatic Centre. Each year the town is losing approximately $2 million to operate the three facilities. 

“I really feel that we need to re-examine our rates schedules again and get them in line with other communities and relieve our taxpayers of some of the burden they are faced with every year,” said Rempel.

“We can’t afford to lose that much money every year on those facilities and not be charging as much as other communities are charging their people for using their facilities.” 

Further discussion on the fees will be brought forward to the spring workshop happening in April. 

 

Pivot Fields 

The appraisal for the pivot fields is expected to be complete this week. Stanford said that there has been a lot more work put into it than administration had originally thought there would be. Some of the things they didn’t think about are there any right-of-ways; how long are the leases for Encana’s pumping areas; what other leases could be on the land. Despite additional requests for information, the appraisal will not cost more than was initially quoted.