Village of Burns Lake Coun. John Illes asked for a guarantee from Mayor Luke Strimbold that the Tom Forysth Memorial Arena expansion project won’t result in any tax increases to cover the costs of maintenance, heating and increased staffing.
He made the ‘out of the box’ request during a council meeting last week and said he had been approached about the issue by a number of concerned local tax payers.
Mayor Strimbold said he cannot make a guarantee that there wouldn’t be tax increases, but he added that the proposed arena expansion facilities are designed to be self sustaining. “Our goal is not to have any tax increase to cover maintenance and any extra staff. It will be a user pay system,” he said.
As reported in the Lakes District News edition of April 11, 2012, the province recently announced that the village has been approved for a $2.4 million grant to help construct the planned 10,000 square foot facility.
The expansion will join the current arena and curling rink and current plans include a squash court, a climbing wall and a work out gym as well as community meeting space.
Village chief administrative officer, Sheryl Worthing said, “When we submitted the grant application to the province, we based our application on revenue estimates from the squash courts and space leasing [for community meetings]. Of course these estimates may change a little, but staffing, operations and maintenance as well as insurance costs were all put into the application and it was approved based on those estimates. User fees will cover a lot of it. We have also talked a lot with Houston and Smithers ... every program they have is self sustaining and their revenue and expenditures balance, so that is what we are looking at doing as well.”
Councillor Quentin Beach said, “I think we also need to make sure that the [taxpayers of the] Regional District of Bulkley Nechako are playing their fair share for the arena. Area B [Burns Lake rural] is the biggest user of the arena.”
“That’s why we are planning for user pay, that’s why we have made this decision. It’s not our goal to say we are going to build this expansion, so now we will have to triple the taxes .... we are creating both recreation and business opportunities,” Mayor Strimbold said.
“That’s good for the tax payers to know and this is why I am bringing this up. Tax payers are not going to be on the hook for maintenance, staffing and heat ..... if it is self maintaining, then we have a good thing ... we won’t be going to tax payers and asking them to subsidize the new space,” Coun. Illes said.
“The plan is user pays,” Mayor Strimbold added.