By Cheryl Jahn

Facilities to Open

Some facilities to open, others not

Jul 27, 2020 | 10:26 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – After a tremendous amount of discussion, Mayor and Council have elected to re-open the three Kin Centres and the Aquatic Centre.

The former will open to the public on August 17th and the latter will re-open on September 8th.

There was much discussion around the importance of gaining access to the Aquatic Centre for things like rehabilitation after surgery to the importance of letting seniors get back in the pool and keep physical. There will be strict rules, though. There will be a maximum of 40 swimmers per two-hour blocks. There will five blocks per each weekday and four blocks on weekends. There would be one-hour of cleaning between each. Due to the Public Health Office, the weight room, the sauna, the lazy river and the wave and water features will not be open for public use. Under normal circumstances, each visit to the pool is subsided by $7. Under the new rules, that subsidy jumps to $57 per visit.

However, it was a vote of 6 to 3, with Garth Frizzell, Mayor Lyn Hall and Susan Scott voting against re-opening the Aquatic Centre.

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It was a different story with the rinks.

The original recommendation from Administration was to keep the CN Centre, the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, the ElksCentre and the Kin Centres closed for the remainder of this year. Mayor Lyn Hall introduced an amendment to that recommendation to allow for the re-opening of the Kin Centres, effective August 17th.

“No five-on-five hockey will be played,” noted Mayor Hall.

It was mentioned that in 2018, the Kin Centres made cost-recovery levels of 75%, and 67% in 2019. Under the new COVID rules, cost-recovery would be 37%.

It was also noted that opening those facilities would come at a cost of $2 million dollars.

“It’s gonna make a lot of people happy,” stated Councillor Garth Frizzell. “But it’s gonna cost us money.”

Mayor and Council also voted unanimously to keep the Conference and Civic Centre closed for the remainder of the year.

“Let’s not lose sight of the fact we have staff working in those facilities,” said Mayor Hall.