Nowt Dodgy .Just Eagerness To Please.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Form The Sublime To The Ridiculous":

Millions of dollars have already been spent on recreation facilities located in all corners of this town.

I’m no expert on this issue, but the thought of spending significant sums of money on a youth centre could well end up being a municipal boondoggle.

Why don’t the kids use the Library or the empty facilities at the ACC, or the ARC or the Leisure Complex ?

********************************

After I left  St Max yesterday, I drove  up the road to the Family Leisure Complex to check the parking lot.

 $200,000 is budgeted for  reconstruction of the parking lot. 
Parking is  terraced on three levels. It's crazed . But it's holding. Ten cars in all were scattered about.
At the side of the building another handful.  The pavement is  At the  back entry, another couple of dozen cars were parked. 
There were more cars at the leash-free dog park .A small gravel parking lot. 
The arena has a chunk of money budgeted for  renewal of  ice-making machinery .We had the debate  in the first budget year of this council. I argued we should de-commission the ice surface and use the space for a youth centre.
The  cooling system  uses thousands of gallons of water a day. We dispose of it. clean and warm. into the sewer system. Then we  pay  high water and sewer rates to the Region.
We have summer ice in the building.
During the 2000/3  I demanded to know why  the extravagance continued while  water restrictions were being enforced  throughout the town. I was told the situation was better than it was before a new roof was installed  to keep  the building  from being  a metal- clad oven. 
We paid top dollar for a specialty architect to design the building.
The fitness room had an industrial carpet covered concrete floor. 
The  jacuzzi never worked prperly from the first week. Eventually the swimming pool fell through the bottom. like Goldilocks  and had to be re-built.
I don't know what change orders might have been made from the architect's designs but the building  certainly has swallowed the mint.
At the time the Stronach Centre was being designed I argued
for an extra ice surface and to stop  throwing  good money after bad at the FamilyLeisure Complex.
I didn't win that argument either. 
The Figure Skating Club  now has their own arena. I don't know how many members they have. Figure skating is an expensive sport. 
Skaters need their own patch. They have individual  coaches and equipment is horrendous cost. 
When we had one arena, figure-skaters had to be out in the middle of the night to get  ice they needed at a price they could afford.
The facility lent itself to a pageant every year which was a fund-raiser. A lot of that had to go one.
Only better- off families and the passionate ones could afford to engage. 
I doubt they pay what  the facility costs  to operate. 
No soil tests have been done to determine if a soil conditions will support an addition. 
I always shared Norm Weller's conviction, soil was the reason the pool fell  into a hole.  
It was going to be a wave pool. That was  changed to steps  to accommodate three  lanes for  competitive swimming.  Everything else was designed for lounging  but that never happened 
You know that old saying; an elephant is a horse designed by a committee.  
There's nothing dodgy going on.. 
Politicians crave  love.They have this desperate need to please.They just tend, for the most part, to misunderstand what most people expect of them They cater to the minority hoping ot won't be noticed. 
In times past, it wasn't.  
The facility started out to be another ice surface to satisfy the hockey lobby. Then it was decided on a swimming pool for 
non-hockey families.Martin Paivio was a Councillor. He had a family of girl children. 
We retained a  specialty  architect. By the time we finished making changes in  design, nothing made any sense..
Recently, the Leisure Services Director asked  me why the town  designed the Community  Centre with  all that seating. .
I explained
The arena had burned down. We were several years without. 
The plan was to design a facility that would meet everybody's needs. Kind of like the teen centre. 
Hockey was the main game. Minor Hockey the main organisation. Fund raising provided all the social activities.
The Tigers were a going concern. There was  no cable television.
We opened the centre early because the Junior C  team  had made it to the play-offs.
The crowds packed  in. It's where young ones, boys and girls, got  to know each other. Hide and seek and running games upstairs and down and all around until they were breathless and their eyes sparkled with excitement  Three generations  came  out to watch the games. 
The ceiling is beautiful  teak underneath the insulation.  Warm air  wafted  over the lilac and grey painted spectator seats. 
The lobby was  painted in tangerine and turquoise with oatmeal coloured tiles on the floor.  Lighting was brilliant
Memories are so strong .  I hate to go there to the dark and silent dreary place it  has become  with  sparse audiences in the  wasp - striped  seating and careless maintenance.
The auditorium is another story. 
              
 .