Gibsons’ April 5 committee of the whole meeting saw what the committee referred to as one of the most efficiently delivered delegation presentations in recent memory. The submission, from Sunshine Coast Skating Club president Andrea Watson requested the Town’s help to secure improvements to ice time on the Coast and the committee agreed to do that.
Speaking on behalf of her group and other arena ice users, Watson explained how these community members have been stymied in their efforts to extend the local skating season. The 2021/22 season ended with ice coming out of the Gibsons and Sechelt locations by early April.
Even more frustrating for those groups is a lack of clarity around how the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) calculates the costs related to maintaining and renting ice at its two arenas.
Watson’s efforts had the desired effect. The committee agreed to press the SCRD for answers around ice costs and why at least one of the skating surfaces cannot be kept in service into the spring/summer season when representatives appear at a Town meeting in the coming weeks.
Committee members also made statements of support of maintaining ice so that the Coast’s competitive skaters and the general public can benefit from the facilities that have been built and are supported by tax dollars. Coun. Annemarie De Andrade and Stafford Lumley said they too were puzzled by the accounting used by the regional district to justify ice time costs.
Watson said that the only costing detail the SCRD has provided to the user groups comes from a report received in Jan. 2019. It states that the incremental cost of maintaining year round ice is estimated at $7,185 per week. That cost is broken down as $2,000 for staffing, operating expenses of $2,550 and capital replacement of $2,885.
The capital cost portion is “the fly in the ointment” according to Watson. She stated that without that portion included in the ice rental rates, “costs would be close to affordable” for the user groups. When her organization asked for further documentation on ice-time charges, the SCRD asked them to use the Freedom of Information (FOI) request process, further detailing the provision of the data.
The user groups were not satisfied with the results that the FOI process produced, and Watson, at a loss as to “what to do next” wrote to Gibsons council for help. She stated she received no response to several requests to the mayor of Sechelt for the same.
While fighting a battle over accounting and fee setting practices, Watson said all involved seem to have forgotten that “our children are the most important piece.” She detailed that the Coast’s young skaters and hockey players are put at a disadvantage without the opportunity to train locally year-round. She outlined the financial and emotional costs her family has experienced in its efforts to support her daughter’s pursuits in competitive figure skating. Those have involved multiple trips off-Coast every season, requiring ferry travel, accommodation and meals away from home and lost time at school for her child.
In closing her call for re-examination of ice rental fees and keeping ice in at least one Coast arena year round, Watson stated, "It is not acceptable to keep saying no when we have the capacity to say yes.”
Mayor Bill Beamish agreed. He said that when the campaign for the SCRD to borrow to construct the Gibsons and Area Community Centre was launched in 2005, one of the arguments in support of taking on that debt was that year-round ice would be available. The potential for community economic development from hosting summer hockey and other ice training camps at that location was something that he felt made sense in taking on a loan to be repaid by taxpayers.
Beamish encouraged Watson to have groups in support of adjustments to SCRD recreation facility policies to write to Gibsons Council and that correspondence will be copied to the regional district board. He also encouraged the ice user groups to remain in contact with the SCRD and to continue to seek meetings to discuss their concerns with both staff and the Board.
