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Harbour Grace council reverses skating on summer rink closure

By Mark Squibb \ April 28, 2023

Harbour Grace council voted this week to keep the Danny Cleary Community Centre open year-round, although two members were not in support of the idea.

Council had voted in January, as part of Budget 2023, to shut down the facility, which houses a skating rink, community space, and walking track, from May until September of this year in hopes of saving a few dollars – although a motion made later this winter to re-open the facility in August was approved by council.

Councillor Brendan Chafe brought the latest motion forward to leave the facility open all summer.

“It’s always sad to see a facility close,” said Chafe. “We try to do our best to keep them open. But there’s always a cost to these facilities.”

He said after council agreed to close it for the summer, new information came to light.

“With the new information that has come to light, I’m prepared to make two motions pertaining to that, and God willing everything works out for us,” said Chafe.

Before putting the matter to a vote, as a matter of housekeeping, council had to rescind the previous motion to close the stadium.

Deputy Mayor Gordon Stone and councillor Keith Skinner voted against that idea.

Chafe then motioned the Centre remain open for the full 2023 calendar year, with utilization of unionized staff being left at the discretion of the stadium manager on an ‘as needed’ basis.  Furthermore, council retained the right to make adjustments to the motion as necessary.

Councillor Terry Barnes seconded the motion, opening the floor for discussion.

Mayor Don Coombs was the first to speak to the matter.

“There is a lot of information that has come to light, and a lot of people have reached out to us on council,” said Coombs. “I think we had a major communication breakdown that happened.”

Coombs said that there were bookings at the facility that council was not aware of when they made the decision to close.

“That communication has to be better now, and in the future,” said Coombs.

The mayor encouraged each councillor to take a moment to address the issue, due to the importance of the decision.

Councillor Randy Wrice voiced his support for the motion to re-open the facility, based he said on the number of complaints he received, particularly from seniors.

“It would be different if we were dealing with just an arena, but we’ve got a community centre/arena,” said Wrice “The feedback I got from the public, and the seniors of the community, was that they were not very happy because the community centre was closing.”

Councillor Terry Barnes was next to speak.

“Like Councillor Wrice, I’m after getting numerous phone calls,” said Barnes. “I’ve been eating and sleeping about this stadium for the past year. And I think it’s time, if it’s going to remain open, let it remain open, and what it is, it is. There’s no recreation facility I know that makes money. All we can do is open and hope to break even without having to put too much money into it. “

Deputy Mayor Keith Skinner was not in favour of opening the facility year-round.

“I respect everybody’s vote on this, and no I don’t want to see this closed, but I think that when we come to look at the money part of this, then it’s something I considered we had to look at,” said Skinner. “And I’m hoping if it opens again for three months that, with everybody’s help, that we are going to make money.”

To that point, Coombs, like Barnes earlier, stated that its unlikely the town will actually make money from the facility.

Finance committee chairman councillor Gordon Stone also did not support the motion to open the facility year-round.

“As a person involved in finance for this year, I’ve put a lot of thought into our centre,” said Stone. “I too want to see it open all year round. But we know from experience that we’ve been putting a $100,000 subsidy into our stadium from a fund that we had for selling the old stadium, to keep it running. This year, that subsidy fund is no longer available to us, and we have no provision in our budget, if there is a large deficit, we have no source to find a way to pay it. I guess we’ll have to borrow.”

Despite not being in favour of the motion, he said that should council vote to keep the facility open, he would work with the rest of council to make the best of the situation.

“I’ve got my doubts that this is going to work out, but like I say, there’s five people here who have no doubt that it’s going to work out, so I’ll support that,” said Stone. “We’ll do our best to make a success out of it. I hope that we can do that.”

Councillor Lee Rogers reiterated there had been communication errors with user groups when council first made the decision to shut the facility.

“We’re not going to make money, but we’re going to help cut down the deficit of the arena,” said Rogers.

Following the discussion, all councillors voted in favour of keeping the facility open year around, including Skinner and Stone, despite their objections.

As per the Budget, council had also voted to increase ice rental costs, a move which councillor Rogers disagreed with sharply at the time.

Earlier in March, council asked the province to subsidize the facility, but was told funding was not available.

During Tuesday’s debate, Coombs noted that some 53 residents had tuned into the meeting, and he was certain many of them specially wanted to hear firsthand councils’ decision regarding the stadium.

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