Town hopeful for County partnership after land announcement

by Tristan Turner

Mayor Lisa Holmes has announced a new partnership with the Town and Sturgeon County on the Rec Centre project. Holmes announced at the Nov. 10 Council meeting the County will be purchasing a large plot of land directly east of the 77-acres the Town of Morinville purchased just east of East Boundary Road. As part of this purchase, the County will be working in cooperation with Morinville to install services to both lots.

There are little details available about the nature of this increasing partnership, but Mayor Holmes said she saw this as a major turning point in the project, and a sign that the cooperation with the county on this project will be strong.

“We are excited about the plan moving forward,” Holmes said. “After hearing from the community, after hearing from all of our potential partners, after hearing from all of the stakeholder groups, I think it is important that we have set a vision. And this is a vision that is more than an arena, so it’s very exciting.”

At the meeting, Mayor Holmes put forward a motion to get two quotes from architecture and professional services contractor on the project, ATB, on two different options for the facility. These quotes were for the:

1. The immediate build of a one sheet arena (seating for 300, expandable to 1200), 4-sheet curling rink, fieldhouse with running/walking track, program/common space, retail/commercial space with a future phase of aquatic centre and second one-sheet arena.

2. The immediate build of a one sheet arena (seating for 300, expandable to 1200), fieldhouse with running/walking track, program/common space, retail/commercial space with a future phase of aquatic centre, 4-6 sheet curling rink and second one-sheet arena.

Holmes’ motion passed unanimously.

The Mayor then notified Council of a second motion she would be making at Council’s next meeting to use $50,000 the two municipalities received from the province for collaborative ventures to investigate efficiencies for joint servicing of the two properties.

Councillor Stephen Dafoe said he was pleased to hear the County had made their land announcement. “It’s finally great to be able to begin to talk about some possibilities with the County that we haven’t been able to talk about [in public] for a long time,” Dafoe said.

Steering Committee expands

Following up on a previous motion to expand the Rec project steering committee to include a minimum of one member from each of seven stakeholder groups, Council unanimously appointed all 12 applicants from the public who applied from various community groups and the general public by the Nov. 9 deadline.

Council also acted on a subsequent motion to reduce Council participation on the committee to just two members. Councillors Gord Putnam and Deputy Mayor Rob Ladouceur will be the council appointees on the committee. Councillors Brennan Fitzgerald and Nicole Boutestein also put their names forward but lost out when names were drawn.

The expanded steering committee is scheduled to meet for the first time later this month.

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