City to proceed
with arena talks

By JEFF NAGEL

COUNCIL has agreed to begin negotiations with an
Edmonton-based firm to build a $3 million second sheet of
ice and take over operation of the existing arena,

But in-depth talks with Community Facilities
Development Inc, (CFDI) aren’t expected to start until new
councillors are elected and it's clear that the. new council
wants to proceed in the same direction.,

“It’s in the hands of the new council, " “mayor Jack Talstra
said at Monday night's council meeting.

The proposed deal would see CFDI finance and build a
$3 million pre-engineered steel building adjacent to the
arena and take over all the: existing off ices and arena ban-
quet room space.

It hasn'tindicated yet what it wants to do with that space,
but the company does want to have it at its disposal.

CFDI would build some kind of restaurant, lounge or bar
al the front of the second sheet building... :

The city would buy 3,350 hours of ice time.per year at a
cost of $428,000 per year and would sell those hours back

The city would be buying youth ice time ata rate af $128 -

per hour and sell it back to youth groups at $55 an hour.
Adult users would pay the full rate and the company would
commit to stick to that price for a set period of time.

The resulting cost to the city would be $244,800 per year.

Councillor David Hull noted that the city now loses
$160,000 per year on the arena operation. ;

Under the CFDI proposal, the city would get double the
amount of ice for its citizens but wouldn’t have to pay dou-
ble the annual cost. And it wouldn’t have to invest the $2.8
million that the city would have spent building the second
sheet proposal defeated by voters a year ago. -

“Tt looks like a good deal.” Hull said.

However, there are some other unknown costs.

Foremost is the price of buying out the four unionized
city staff and one city manager who operate the arena, An
internal city memo indicates that cost could be as much as
$170,000,

But Hull said the city may. be able to reduce that dramati-
cally by reassigning staff to other city departments.

Other issues identified in the eity’ 8 internal analysis of
the proposal include:

B Parking: CFDI has been vague on whether it would
spend the estimated $250,000 required to dig into the hill
and create the amount of parking spaces required by city
bylaws. Hull says the city can’t cut special deals for the
company just because they’re partners in a project.

@ Loss of parks/rec office space: It could cost the city up
to £12,000 to rent office space for the parks and recreation
staff if the city can’t make room in another public building.

@ The deal may mean the end of the city and schcol dis-
trict’s arrangement of not charging each other for use of the
facilities. Someone — whether it's the city or the school dis-
trict — would have to spend up to $24,000 a year to buy i ice
time on behalf of school groups.

@ Arena banquet room: Community groups would lose
the use of the arena banquet room and the city would lose
the revenue it generates.

CFD] built a nearly identical very basic second sheet of
ice in Whitecourt, Alberta, a city of 7.200 near Edmonton.

Jay Granley. community services director for the City of
Whitecourt, says CFDI operated it for two years before
turning it over to the city in August because of the heavy

losses the company was incurring, Whitecourt had to.

. asgume the $2 million, debi tof the the : pry act.

Granley'said the $9573 ail ‘hour’ ite ‘fees ¥ Were 100 id they
didn’t get as much off-season market as' hoped, ‘and the Tes-
taurant didn’t make as much money ashoped.

Hull says the fine details of the contract and how to keep
the city of Terrace from being exposed to similar trouble
will be resolved in the negotiations ahead:

He said if the city had to take on the company’s capital
cost after some financial failure, the end result would
“amount to anend ron around the referendum defeat.”

He said it’s probable there will be a clause that says the
agreement isn't transferrable to any other company without
the city’s agreement.The city would retain ownership of
the existing arena and lease out the facility 10 the company.
After 25 years the facility would be turned back over to the
city,

Two other bids were received. The main competing bid ~
from Vancouver-based R.G, Properties — would have cost
the city $366,000 a year to subsidize youth ice time plus
$149,000 a year to cover the loan payments on a $1.15 mil-
lion equity position the city would be required to take in
the project. Total annual cost would have been $515,000.

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A2 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 30, 1996

Trustees under fire

QUESTIONS ABOUT the selection of a
new superintendent, openness of the school
board and giving the public more say domi-
nated the all candidates foram last week.

The forum, put on by The Terrace Stan
dard and other local news outlets, gave
candidates for newly merged Terrace and
Kitimat school district the opportunity to
spell out their platforms,

Newcomer Hal Stedham, running for one
of the three Terrace seats, expressed shock
at provisions giving senior administrators in
Terrace a five-year contract that’s renewed
each year and five year pay outs.

“T’m amazed at that contract,” he said,
“T’ve never heard anything similar to it in
any other district,

Stedham made the remarks during debate
on bow the new district was to choose its
senior administrator. .

Another newcomer, John Jensen, had
something to say about superintendent
Frank Hamiltan’s contract. Jensen said he
didn’t blame the superintendent, adding it

*just proves he’s good at getting his way.”

He noted the superintendent's arrange-
meat is similar to that of the prime minis.
ter’s. ‘‘The pay is about the same, but (the
prime minister) has to come back every
four or five years to get renewed”?

Jensen recommended the board of the
newly-merged Terrace and Kitimat school
districts hold an open hiring process when
it comes to senior administrators.

Another new candidate, Ron Town
agreed, Amalgamation must ‘be fair and eq-
uitable, and can’t be based solely on
severance agreements, he said.

Incumbent Gary Turner spoke out against
that line of thought. He said he wasn’t in
favour of breaking administrative contracts

and paying people out because, “the money
is going to come from education.”

Terrace trustee hopeful Marj Brown took
direct aim at the existing board,

She said the district had made ‘‘some
token gestures” toward better communica-
tion, but stated much more is needed.

Incumbent Roger Leclerc also said he
was in favour of a more open process, and
that he wants to open committee meetings
to the public. However, he didn’t agree
with the degree of openness suggested by
some,

“T don’t quite agree with the Kitimal
model,’’ Leclerc said, adding he favours
some kind of compromise between the twa
syslems.

Trusiee Stew Christensen echoed the
same sentiment. “I firmly believe we have
to be listening to all our stakeholder
groups,”’ he said.

Brown responded io those claims in her
closing remarks.

“TE administration and the board wanted
us to have more input, we would have it by
now,’' she said, to cheers from the audience
of about 80-90,

Incumbent Laurie Mitchell reminded the
audience of the most important reason they
were there —- the students. She said for
their sake it was important to create and
maintain stability in the system.

She came under some criticism from
parent Christine Crawford, who accused
her of describing parent advisory commitee
gatherings as ‘‘hotdog meetings’ and
refusing to attend.

Mitchell replied that she makes sure she’s
available to attend meetings about specific
issues, bul isn’t able to attend every func-
tion.

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