For over a year, the village of Elbow has been working towards gaining some substantial ground towards one day establishing a brand-new multipurpose facility in the community.
A public meeting held back in February 2020 at the Elbow Civic Center produced a sizable crowd that seemed to be open to the idea of a new building in the lakeside community.
Today, though, feelings on this potential facility are somewhat divided, with one group of concerned ratepayers taking action to request more information and poll the public to see whether people were in favor of the project.
What follows is information gained from both sides of the fence.聽 First, we hear from the side of the petitioners, who went to Elbow鈥檚 village council on April 12 to present an informal petition with 170 signatures of ratepayers that was requesting more information on the proposed facility, as well as a vote to be held asking ratepayers whether or not they were in favor of the facility.
Please note that the person this reporter was in contact with regarding the petitioners did not want to be named for this article.
Below was the wording of the first petition:
鈥淰illage of Elbow Mayor and Council
Elbow council has proposed a multi million dollar new build to replace current buildings; civic centre, rink, library, gym, kitchen and meeting rooms without any details on operations, management or budget for the project AND council is refusing to share information.
We the signators want the above mentioned details shared with the ratepayers. Once the information is shared ratepayers will decide if they support the build or not.
We then ask council to hold a vote of Elbow ratepayers on the 鈥淣ew Build鈥�. The question is to be are you in favor OR are you opposed to the new build.鈥�
The person The Outlook was in contact with said that at the meeting, the village council responded that they were under a gag order and could not talk about the build due to its grant application.聽 Concerned ratepayers then decided to proceed with a second, formal petition from April 16-18 after village council reportedly did not respond over agreeing to hold a vote.
Over a couple of days, 110 signatures were said to be collected on this petition.聽 Numbers were lower as email signatures are not accepted on a formal petition.聽 However, only 15% of the population covered is required for a formal petition, and Elbow has a population of 337 according to the most recent census data.聽 Feeling that there was more than enough support for this petition, it was given to the village administrator on April 19.
One of the biggest concerns on the part of the petitioning ratepayers is that Elbow ratepayers will be 鈥渙n the hook鈥� for all overages of the facility build, which may be too much for the modestly-sized village to manage.聽 The operating costs will be covered by a few streams: rental revenue generated by having a beautiful facility designed to meet the needs of a number of user-groups (weddings, reunions, plays or performances, large dinners, sporting events, meeting rooms/flex spaces available for smaller groups, and the fitness center); fundraising efforts generated from the community (including some clever ideas about creating a foundation that would provide a steady stream of interest that would build over the years, donations as a part of estate tax planning, and more conventional fundraising efforts like Chase the Ace, dinners and events). 聽In the event that there is a shortfall, it鈥檚 said that the ratepayers would pitch in.
In summarizing the petitioner side of things on the project, it was said that there was 鈥渙verwhelming support鈥� from ratepayers that signed the petitions to have Elbow鈥檚 village council share the results of a feasibility study before holding a vote.聽 The petitioners understand that there is information that at this point the council doesn鈥檛 have, but they say that if the grant application was to be successful, there are still questions to be answered.聽 Their official request is to have Village Council hold a vote once they have all the information needed but before the project proceeds.
The petition group has received no official response from the Village of Elbow after submitting their petition.
This reporter received an official response from the Village of Elbow Council dated April 27 sharing its side of the matter after The Outlook reached out.
鈥淭hank you for your inquiry regarding the Line 19 Regional Multiplex facility.聽 The Village of Elbow did submit an ICIP grant application for a Line 19 Regional Multiplex facility to be built in the Village of Elbow.聽 The Village received Provincial approval for the application but has not yet received final approval from the Federal Government in regards to the ICIP application.
The Village Council was hoping to receive Final Approval before now and then take all the information that they have and share such with the ratepayers.聽 Realizing that the Ratepayers were anxious for more information sooner than later, but struggling with ways on how to share such due to COVID-19 restrictions, Council and the Line 19 Regional Multiplex Committee created a power point presentation.聽 This presentation has been shared with the ratepayers via our Village website, door to door communication within the village and online sharing with our Line 19 Neighbors.聽 The Power Point presentation includes all the up-to-date information that Council has to share in regards to the ICIP grant and the Line 19 Regional Multiplex facility.
The door to door campaign to share the information with the ratepayers was an engaging opportunity.聽 The vast majority of ratepayers were thankful for the information.聽 Feedback was positive, excitement and favoritism for the Line 19 Regional Multiplex project was definitely a strong, majority response.
Getting this information out to the ratepayers sooner may have slowed or stopped all the 鈥渃offee shop鈥� rumors but at no time was Council ever hiding any public information, we were and are, simply waiting for final word.
The Village of Elbow has been presented with a petition.聽 Our Village of Elbow Administrator is conferring with the appropriate offices within the Municipalities of Saskatchewan on the next steps to be taken.聽 As the delegation who presented the petition stated, 鈥淲e are not speaking against the Line 19 Multiplex, we simply want the opportunity to exercise our democratic right.鈥�
Aligning with our Long-Term Goals, one objective for the Village of Elbow Official Community Plan is to ensure the provision of additional recreational land and services as the community grows.聽 Currently, no existing multi-use facility exists in our region with capacity large enough to meet the cultural, recreational, and community demands.聽 The Village of Elbow will continue working towards their goals: Improving access to community, cultural and/or recreational infrastructure and improving quality of community, cultural and/or recreational infrastructure.鈥�
