By Thia James

P.A. Kinsmen Club to look at funding for slides’ rebuild

Aug 28, 2014 | 6:43 AM

Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dionne is very confident the water slides at Kinsmen Water Park will re-open next year.

In fact, he’s 90 per cent certain the slides will re-open because of the positive community response for the TSN/Kraft Celebration Tour.

“Well… you got to leave some room for a hiccup,” he said of the other 10 per cent.

The Kinsmen Water Park’s slides have been closed for the entire season due to safety concerns about the structure. To rebuild the slides, $260,000 is needed. The City is already staking $60,000 for the project, and the water park secured $25,000 as a finalist in the TSN/Kraft Celebration Tour.

Dionne said the City will continue to negotiate with service clubs, but he said that during the TSN/Kraft Celebration Tour, officials were approached by a couple of business people in the community offering to help.

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“So now that we didn’t win Kraft [the $100,000 grand prize], we’re going into Plan B and I’m very confident that we’ll raise the money necessary to rebuild the water slides.”

He said a funding announcement would likely come within a month, explaining that one of the service clubs he’s spoken with will have their first meeting in September.

Dionne said they want to give this club the first opportunity.

Count the Prince Albert Kinsmen Club among one of the clubs that could step up to help rebuild the water slides.

Past president Jared Devers confirmed the club’s current president met with city manager Jim Toye this past spring. The Kinsmen Club doesn’t meet over the summer, so the City and the club agreed that city officials would present a proposal of what it they’re looking for from the Kinsmen, Devers said.

Devers said the City asked the club if it would be interested in putting up the full remaining amount needed, or just a portion of it.

“We kind of let them know that the Kinsmen Club is interested, so they were going to develop a plan because they had to go through their new budget meeting which I didn’t think … didn’t quite happen yet to figure out if they’d be able to allot more money towards this project or not. And that’s supposed to be ready when they come present to us in a couple weeks.”

But there could be some obstacles in the way of a contribution.

“With some of our fundraisers not being as, you know, successful as they have been in the past years due to new legislation, it’s just going to be a matter of how much of that we can do, if we can do the whole thing, great, if not, if we can only do a portion of it, we might have to look into getting a partner with a corporate organization.”

He said this is what the club has to decide in September.

The drive to keep the Kinsmen name on the water park is significant. “When we donated money in the past, we donated over a million dollars to get our name on that, so, it’d be kind of disappointing if, you know, $175,000 took our name off and gave someone else naming rights.”

Devers said the club hopes to make a decision before December.

The City is taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to finding a funder for the slides’ rebuild.

“If one steps forward, then we’re laughing. If not, we’ll split it up three or four different ways,” Dionne said.

He also confirmed that if a community group were willing contribute, the City could pay to fix the slides up front, with the club paying the City back in instalments.

“We do do that. Because with service clubs, they know how to do things, and if they need a little step up from us or help from us, we’d most certainly do that.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames