At a City Council meeting on Monday, May 9, Council voted on amendments to both the Joint Use Agreement between the City of Kimberley and Rocky Mountain School District 6 (SD6), as well as Recreation Facilities Rental Rates.
Currently, the Joint Use Agreement between the City and SD6 states that the school board is to pay the City for operating costs that are incurred (man power and equipment), however, the City has not been collecting payments from SD6 for the past 15 years. The committee recommended to Council that they direct staff to terminate the Joint Use Agreement between the City and SD6.
It was decided at the meeting that the City of Kimberley and SD6 would maintain the existing agree–ºment, and the staff will move forward with charges.
Mayor, Don McKormick said with regards to the decision, “in the original joint use agreement, it was agreed by SD6 that there would be charges for facilities; for man power and for equipment, not for the facility itself, but operating costs that were incurred.
“It was agreed that we would charge that all along, dating back to 2001. The fact is, we have not done that. Really what we want to do in reviewing the agreement is simply go back to what was originally agreed to in 2001, and start from today, moving forward, [implement] those charges for the costs that are associated with usage.”
Counsellor, Sandra Roberts pointed out that for the past few months, Council has been going through city bylaws that no longer have validity.
“This particular agreement seems to be one of them,” said Roberts. “After discussions with the school district that staff has had, they [SD6] don’t even look at this particular joint use agreement; they have their own usage agreement and they don’t seem particularly interested in re-visiting this.”
McCormick explained that the issue with the joint use agreement doesn’t have to do with the use of the facilities itself, aside from the hockey school that was using the arenas, “outside of that we don’t really have joint use of anything anymore. The City doesn’t do programming, so we don’t use City facilities, and the groups that do in fact use the school district facilities, like for pickle ball for example, they contract directly through the use agreement. Really what we have is an agreement that I’m sure had purpose back when it was brought in, but over time is has evolved and the purpose of that has really gone away.”
With regards to the Rental Rates for Recreation Facilities, Council decided to approve “Option A” for all Fee Schedules, with the exception of the charges outlined for use of fields by community members and groups.
“I don’t disagree with all of the new rates, Mr. Mayor, but I do have a problem with one of them and that is the rate that we will be charging minor soccer to use the fields,” said Counsellor Albert Hoglund. “I feel that doing that is wrong, especially with all of the volunteer labour that was put into the fields by parents and members of this community to make that field [Purcell] what it is.”
McCormick responded by saying, “I agree with you on this, 100%. The fields are not just used by soccer, they are used by a wide variety of folks, and for much broader things than just soccer.”
With these amendments there will be no fee charged to minor league soccer, however commercial groups and events will be charged the rental rate outlined in “Option A” for use of fields like Purcell.
To see the entire Regular Council Agenda from May, 8 visit https://kimberley.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/42945?preview=46321.