Public must be reassured rink will be built - Kelly
Published Friday November 14th, 2008
The chairman of Fredericton's community services committee says it's time to make a once-and-for-all commitment to the construction of a $20-million to $26-million rink for the south side of Fredericton.
Coun. David Kelly said with all due respect to the city's four newest council members, it's time to reassure the public that the city intends to keep its word to construct a second hockey arena in the capital city.
"I want this decision made Monday night when we meet behind closed doors ... I am not leaving Monday night without a decision being made," Kelly said.
His committee is the one tasked with looking after recreation interests for city council.
"I think that all of council has had an opportunity to consider the public's input. All of council has had an opportunity to listen to the staff input. All council has had an opportunity to listen to the consultant's input," Kelly said.
"There's no way anybody can convince me at this point that we don't have all the information needed to make an executive, proper and important and good decision as to what we want to do on the rink issue."
That doesn't mean the city will ignore other sports interests, and the city can continue to work with groups that are gathering funds to commit to capital projects.
The tennis community, for instance, has collected $215,000 to put toward a facility in the capital city and the city can work with and assist such groups, Kelly said.
"I don't want to build a $20-million facility that has 250 seats in it. That just doesn't make sense to me," Kelly said.
"In all honesty, should we have built a four-plex in the beginning of this? ... Maybe we should have done that in the first place. Four ice surfaces, one facility."
Fredericton has often had north versus south issues, Kelly said, but it's time to move on.
"I'm hearing so many people say that politics played a huge role in the decision that council made when we built that one rink across the river and now we're going to build one on this side of the river to even it up," Kelly said.
"Well, maybe it did have a role to play at the time, but, if anything, I don't want to have this thing drag on and drag on and drag on anymore.
"We made a promise. We made a commitment to the residents that this is what we're going to do.
"This is what we said in 2005 ... Let's move on with it. I want this to go through."
If the city were to scrap its original plan, Kelly said, local service districts that signed recreation cost-sharing deals with the city would be within their rights to demand that those contracts be renegotiated.
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This is about children and physical activity make it available to all, not just the select few.
This council should open the doors to the public, and involve the community in this decision. After all, it's our cash they're spending.