Morinville residents should soon know who will be building the new arena and recreation centre in town, but some area residents may not be happy about it. Council is expected to award the contract at a special meeting Sept.
Morinville residents should soon know who will be building the new arena and recreation centre in town, but some area residents may not be happy about it.
Council is expected to award the contract at a special meeting Sept. 15, but a local citizens’ group requested at the Sept. 8 meeting the process be put on hold for two months.
Mayor Lisa Holmes confirmed late last week the special meeting would go ahead, and awarding the contract is the only public item on the agenda.
“The majority of that meeting will be talking about the (request for proposals)," she said.
On Sept. 8, about 30 residents of Morinville and Sturgeon County packed the public gallery while resident Alanna Hnatiw made a presentation on behalf of the Sturgeon Recreation Facility Citizen Group.
She raised concerns about the process so far, and asked that council: freeze the current process; meet with other regional councils to create partnerships within 60 days; add more members to the arena steering committee; create a commission or society to move the project forward; name of board of directors to oversee the design, build and management of the project; and have the municipality itself and the community at large split control of the project 50/50.
The group also requested a special meeting to address this “urgent matter.”
Holmes replied that she had already met with the citizen group a week prior to hear these concerns, and had already committed to addressing many of them including expanding the steering committee, meeting with Sturgeon County and calling a special meeting of council.
She explained the town and county are beginning discussion about setting up an inter-municipal affairs committee, with a subcommittee that would focus on recreation.
“We’re setting up the process of how we’re going to create the partnership with Sturgeon County, and we’ve already had our first meeting,” she said. “Things are moving ahead, definitely, in that way.”
Coun. Stephen Dafoe acknowledged there was some legitimate criticism that could be made with respect to how the process has been handled so far.
“We could have done a better job in laying out some of the information as to where we were at, and for that personally I apologize,” he said.
Hnatiw replied she thought saw a lot of promising work and is hopeful about the project, but felt it was important to begin mobilizing citizens and getting them to stay engaged and to ensure the project is a reflection of the entire community.
“In no way do we want to slow down the process,” she said. “We want it to be the best it can be, done right the first time. That’s why we’re here.”
Coun. Gord Putnam explained while the process can look slow from the outside, it takes time to ensure all applicable laws are being followed and that everything is being done correctly.
Later in the meeting, council passed motions to expand the steering committee to include at least seven more members from different stakeholder groups, and to set up a dinner meeting with representatives from several different regional councils to discuss the arena project.
The deadline on the request for proposals was Aug. 31, and a steering committee reviewed the 11 bids from a total of 25 companies on Sept. 1, according to town manager Deb Oyarzun’s report to council.
“That’s a collaborative approach to working on the project itself,” she said.
