Some changes to arena and canteen services sparked a lengthy debate at Monday’s regular Chatham-Kent council meeting.
Evelyn Bish, director of community development, provided a presentation to council, which outlined a series of recommendations staff made after conducting a service review of Chatham-Kent’s arenas and canteens.
Bish said the main issues are loss of revenue due to decreased usage and increased operating cost.
“We’re hearing from our groups that our rates are high,” Bish said.
West Kent Coun. Bryon Fluker entered a successful motion to approve the following staff recommendations.
– The full-time union staffing complement at William K. Erickson Arena and Chatham Memorial Arena be reduced from a three to a two staff person system through attrition, to achieve the operating efficiencies that currently exist in five other arenas.
– Weekday non-prime time hours of operation be modified to better reflect the current demand for ice rentals and ice programming at a combined savings with recommendation #1 of $136,363.
– A Request for Interest be issued to determine external interest in the outsourcing of canteen operations in municipal arenas.
– The existing three part-time union and one part-time non-union Canteen Supervisor positions be restructured to meet the current traffic demands in canteens and achieve operating efficiencies, at a net savings of $20,954.
– A “Holiday Discounted Last Minute” rental rate of $100/hr. be implemented.
– A base budget adjustment of $106,319 to reflect the declining revenue for ice programming and rentals be approved, resulting in a net savings of $50,998 for the entire report.
Fluker also made a successful motion to create a tiered-pricing system for adult prime time ice rates at arenas with abutting arenas in other neighbouring communities.
Fluker also successfully moved a motion for staff to investigate the creation of an “ice back policy” similar to the one in Leamington and for staff to look into ways to improve access and availability for facility rentals in C-K.
Fluker said people in Wheatley can get a better rate for ice rentals by taking a short drive to Leamington, and the case in the same in other arenas in Chatham-Kent.
“If you are in Wallaceburg, you get a bunch of guys together and go to Walpole Island and get a way cheaper rate,” Fluker said.
A staff report says Chatham-Kent’s ice rates are $207.71 per hour for the prime time adult rate, while non-prime time for minor organizations is $165.99 per hour.
The the prime time adult rate for neighbouring communities are lower for the most part.
Mooretown has the lowest rate at $150 per hour, while many of the other fall between $180 and $190.
Many ideas floated around the horseshoe during the discussion as well.
North Kent Coun. Joe Faas said more marketing needs to be done.
“It would make ourselves more competitive,” he said.
Faas added working more closely with local schools could be an answer to filling up a lot of the unused “dead time” as well.
Chatham Coun. Bob Myers said he would like to see Chatham-Kent offer one free hour of skating at every arena in Chatham-Kent. Myers entered this as a notice of motion later on in the meeting as well.
South Kent Coun. Trevor Thompson said running each arena as an individual business unit, as opposed to a centralized system for arenas, could be an answer moving forward.
“Arenas are all of Chatham-Kent’s problems rolled into one,” he said. “We have too many arenas that are not being used.”
Mayor Randy Hope said the lack of provincial and federal funding, compared to past years, has a significant impact on arenas in Chatham-Kent. Hope added the “root cause” to declining registration is the price.
Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley said he likes the idea of outsourcing the canteen services across C-K.
“A lot of the groups have experience with kitchen facilities, and I could see potentially some of them looking at it as a fundraiser and I hope that when we go to look for interest that we make sure that we draw the attention to the user groups of the fact that we are doing this, they may have some interest,” he said.
A staff report says over the past several years, Chatham-Kent arenas have been facing several challenges, and are expected to continue to do so.
Some of the problems include: lower hockey registration resulting in the merging of minor hockey associations, new arenas in the Town of Lakeshore and the Town of Essex, and the ice allocation policy mixed with the declining demand, possibly creating gaps of unused ice time.
“All of these challenges will have an effect on cost recovery through user fees to meet council’s approved revenue targets,” the staff report states. “An increase in rates could affect affordability to remaining ice users, which could result in further reduction of ice hours rented.”
