(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

A seat at the table

Creation of committee to oversee rec centre project gets pushback from some councillors

Mar 30, 2021 | 5:00 PM

Prince Albert city council has approved the creation of an oversight body for the city’s new multimillion recreation complex in a narrow 5-4 vote that saw several councillors raise questions about the composition of the committee.

One of the primary functions of the steering committee will be to ensure residents, along with members of city council, have their interests represented during the design and build of the new facility. The body will advise council, administration and the architect/consultant team on matters relating to the project and be responsible for keeping city council up to date with progress. The committee can make recommendations, but final decisions will be made by council.

Its seven members, as recommended by the mayor, are: Mayor Greg Dionne, Coun. Dawn Kilmer, Coun. Ted Zurakowski, Coun. Blake Edwards, City Manager Jim Toye, Gord Broda and Russ Clunie. Clunie and Broda are partners in Signature Developments Corporation, the company that sold the land to the city for the new recreation complex and who are currently preparing the site for construction.

Who gets a seat at the table?

Coun. Dennis Ogrodnick questioned why the mayor recommended the appointments without first asking all councillors if they were interested, the process Ogrodnick said that is normally followed for committee appointments.

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“This is the largest project in the history of the City of Prince Albert,” he said. “And when I read this, it appears to me that some of us are being left out.”

His colleague Charlene Miller said she personally wasn’t interested in sitting on the committee but asked why no members of the general public were given a seat at the table.

“I do believe at least one member of our public should be on here,” Miller said.

Coun. Tony Head and Coun. Terra Lennox-Zepp echoed her comments.

“This committee is of the upmost importance,” Lennox-Zepp said. “I think it is very valuable that we have to really think about the issues that were raised by my colleagues and also selection criteria. There should be some public and transparent criteria as to why individuals are being place onto these committees.”

Moving forward

Coun. Blake Edwards said regardless of whether members of the public were appointed to the committee, their voices would be represented.

“We [as councillors] have public in our ears all the time. Everybody gets calls from the public and I certainly think we’re going to bring those voices to the steering committee,” he said, adding he would have been in favour of the creation of the committee even if he wasn’t appointed as a member.

Mayor Greg Dionne said it would be impossible to coordinate weekly committee meetings around the schedules of all nine members of council.

He emphasized the committee cannot make any decisions on the project, without getting approval from all of council first.

“The key to the committee is to move the project forward,” he said. “We’re two to three months behind and the committee can move the thing forward.”

Asked by paNOW why no representatives from user groups are on the committee, Dionne said user groups were already being consulted through other avenues.

“You put the swim group on there [the steering committee], well they’re going to focus on the pool,” he said. “We put a Minto rep on it, they want their ice times, they want bigger dressing rooms.”

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom