By Thia James

City to consider repair reserves for facilities as campaign for water slides continues

Jul 18, 2014 | 6:28 AM

In the wake of the closure of the four large water slides at Prince Albert’s Kinsmen Water Park, members of council plan to take a look at setting up reserves for city-owned facilities.

Mayor Greg Dionne is pointing to the water slides as another example of the City building a facility and “there’s no plan for the future.”

“We are putting plans, in the future to deal with problems that we know that are going to occur,” he said.

The water slides are closed for the summer because their condition is such that city administration and council believed they would pose a safety risk. The 300-foot slides, river slide and junior slide have exposed fibres in the fibreglass structure and compromised joints in the steel part of the slides.

To completely overhaul the four slides, it will cost $260,000. The City has already committed $60,000 towards it.

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The water park is now one of the finalists in the Kraft Celebration Tour, and it has the potential to win $100,000 in total if it wins the contest. For being a finalist, the water park is guaranteed $25,000.

There was never a reserve with funds set aside specifically for the maintenance and repair of the water slides or the Kinsmen Water Park.

The contingency planning won’t be limited to the water slides – the City is already looking at its plans to maintain its other structures. The vast majority of the City’s buildings do not have maintenance funding set aside for future use.

Dionne said they’re currently working with the Prince Albert Youth Soccer Association on plans for the eventual replacement of the floor in the soccer pitch inside the Alfred Jenkins Field House.

“So, instead of waiting for that day and giving our taxpayers a jolt, we’re working on plans now so that we have reserves, so when these things come up, they can be repaired.”

As it stands right now, about $1 million is approved each year through the capital budgeting process for community services department. The community services department is responsible for the city’s facilities. About $750,000 comes directly through that year’s capital budget.

“But it’s obvious with our aging facilities that that million dollars isn’t going to work. And that’s why we decided that we’re going to sell off some of our buildings.” He said that in the 2015 budget, this million dollar funding will be one of the first discussion points.

The aim is to create separate reserves dedicated to each facility, similar to what is in place with the E.A. Rawlinson Centre. Dionne said they charge $1 on every ticket sold at the E.A. Rawlinson Centre, and that money goes into the capital reserve for future capital expenditures at that facility.

“So, once you get these funds up and running, and after a few years, once they’re funded, they should take care of the needs of those buildings,” he said.

In the past, elected officials have shied away from creating similar reserve funds. When asked why no such funds were ever set up, Dionne attributed this to the taxpayers’ dislike for being taxed and having that money go unused.

“At the end of the day, it [repairs] is going to be funded by taxpayers,” he said. The exceptions are the E.A. Rawlinson Centre, which Dionne said is funded by user groups and the Cooke Municipal Golf Course’s maintenance is funded through fees.

In the future, when they go to build new facilities, Dionne said they will look out 10 years at the kinds of repairs that may be needed. “And then we’re going to put that into the funding or the charge to get in or whatever so that account is funded.”

Coun. Lee Atkinson too looks to the E.A. Rawlinson Centre’s model. More often than not, he said, we don’t set anything aside for anything other than operations until maintenance costs become significant. He thinks the City should be setting aside funds for maintenance on an ongoing basis.

He has suggested setting funds aside for maintaining facilities during previous budget meetings, he said. “Because we do have the example of the Rawlinson Centre where we’ve gone in that direction.”

Atkinson said there’s also a question of whether the City would go back to the user groups and gauge their willingness to contribute to a fund for the facility’s maintenance. He thinks that would be fair.

For the water slides, he said it would be great if their life expectancy were to be a number of additional operational years. But if it becomes a question of what else needs to be dealt with that isn’t already identified in the engineering report – the report that first highlighted the safety risks – it may be time to set aside funds for a replacement that is more viable in the longer term, he said.

“Well, I think again that would be prudent on our part to say we anticipate this need, let’s say in 10 years, therefore let’s start saving towards that need now, similar to the maintenance. If we know that all these facilities, you know, ongoing maintenance annually, just like our homes do, then we should be putting money aside for that on an ongoing basis.”

The problem with the Kinsmen water slides is that they took a beating from the weather because they are outside, Dionne said. But because of the wet conditions the slides were exposed to, he said there were also freeze/thaw issues.

“At the end of the day, look how old that water park is. I’m amazed it survived as long as it did.”

The mayor said he wants the slides to reopen and will do anything he can to get it reopened.

When it comes to the City’s promotion of the Kraft Celebration Tour vote for the Kinsmen Water Park, he said it is working across the province to encourage people to vote during the two days of voting.

Two days of voting in the Kraft Celebration Tour begins on Monday. The City will be hosting a barbecue lunch at the park starting at 11:30 a.m. Dionne said the City is encouraging the public to spread the word via social media. The City has built a Facebook page, Save Our Summer, Save Our Slides. The water park also has a new Twitter feed.

“We’re reaching out to all kinds of social media, print media, any kind of media you can think of to encourage people in the province of Saskatchewan to get out and vote for Prince Albert.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames