1. Arena addition – Director Tom Fortune says about 7000 hockey players have gone through the various hockey programmes at the Oliver area since 1968 and each year there are 400 to 600 visitors to the facility per week. Fortune says it is time for further improvements to the arena including two additional change rooms that could cost $80 thousand dollars. They would be built on the south side of the building. The Board of Directors have asked the facilities committee to continue the planning and bring forward a request for proposals at a future meeting. The greatest need today is change rooms for girls but the board thinks to add more areas to change is a better idea with teams being assigned rooms based on need not by sex.
2. Attendance improvement policy – Manager Bob Grant says there is no problem with employee attendance at work but he has brought forward a new policy at the request of the Board of Directors that seeks to improve attendance based on a policy of a library system as he says he couldn’t find a model in any municipal or recreation department.
The policy states in part “employees who exceed their annual amount of sick days of 6 days will be considered for monitoring and counseling under this policy.” Employees are required to punch in and out, using the time clock located in the arena staff room but should not do so until they are ready to commence performance of their duties.
The policy above does not state which employees are to do this and which are not to. The parks board has 2 exempt staff and 5 union staff – more during the summer.
3. Reserves: The Board of Directors have once again tackled the subject of reserves and a relatively new BC government initiative (Tangible Capital Assets). The allocations going into regular reserves and a new fund have been talked about for years and further information seems to confuse most who look into it. The board has recommended to the RDOS to set up one only (General TCA reserve) for the “replacement or substantial renovation to enhance or extend the life of the said asset”.
The RDOS would also be asked to direct all future budget surpluses to the General TCA reserve starting at the end of 2013 and that a line item be created in future budgets that makes a contribution at the determination of the local parks board to the same reserve. The OPRS also wants funds previously set aside for this purpose in 2011 and 2012 to be found within the present 5 function reserve system and allocated to the General TCA reserve.
4. Covering pool survey – enclosing the pool? The Board has surveyed the people and any further discussion about this idea will cease. The survey showed that of 53 participants – 32 said yes cover the pool – 24 said no. *Of the those persons surveyed only 29 expressed an interest in paying more taxes for this project with the greatest number stating $100 more each year. In percentages 60 percent said yes 54% said they would pay more in taxes.
To quote Vice Chair Larry Clarke – “even if it was given to us for nothing – the operating costs would kill us.”
Here are statements that seem to tell the story best:
Please do this for the community – all ages will benefit
Too expensive to operate
I know many people who would use it daily in the winter
Do you have an estimate on the cost?
The facility is wasted for ten months of the year
We pay quite enough taxes now
This would be a wonderful amenity
* more detail added to the story – see all comments
5. Meeting Notices and Agenda Material: At the last meeting in January the board discussed holding a special meeting to talk about the arena but used that meeting to discuss many other items without notice to the public or media.
The board had also discussed previously that agenda material should not be given to the media at the same time as members of the Board of Directors. At Monday’s meeting it was announced that a new website is being constructed so that all agendas, notices and support material will be loaded to the Internet prior to each regular meeting so that the general public will have access to such material and directors will be sent a copy prior to that. This new system is similar to the one used by the RDOS and the Town of Oliver which is standard operating practice for local government funded organizations.