The chair of the Bayfield Arena Community Partners Association says he was disappointed Bluewater councillors didn't look into the discrepancy between a staff report on the cost of keeping ice in the Bayfield Arena beyond April of 2018, and the report submitted verbally by Bayfield ward councillor Bill Whetstone.
Ron Keys notes Whetstone says his figures came from the company that has been servicing the equipment for the last 30 years and was considerably lower than the report staff got from another company.
Bluewater Mayor Tyler Hessel says the information provided by Whetstone could not be part of the discussion because it had not been presented to council before the meeting as required in the procedural bylaw.
Keys also says the proposal to take the ice out of the Bayfield Arena has been on-going since 2009 when a report by staff indicated at that time it would cost $409,000 to re-purpose the arena.
"The biggest surprise in there was the report stated that there was going to be substantial costs to equipment to keep the facility operating as an arena and they didn't even go to the company that was servicing the equipment in the last thirty years. They went to another company," says Keys. "They reported in 2009 that it would take $409,000 repurpose the building. I think that plan was raised again in 2013, which brings me to another question... is there money in the Bluewater budget for re-purposing, so is it gonna just mothball it and sit there empty."
Keys questions whether there is money in Bluewater's budget to do that now, and with no plans for anything that might generate more revenue than the ice does now, is the building going to sit empty until there's enough money in the budget for re-purposing.
Hessel stated, "At this point there was a fair bit of infrastructure we were going to have to invest in. We will not be investing in any of that infrastructure for ice-making. That's the easiest way to put it and that's how the document reads from the staff is that we will not be doing any re-investing in any of the equipment itself at this time."