Monday, February 9, 2009

Haldimand "Have Your Say about a New Arena"

You can go to http://www.dunnvillechronicle.ca/ and have your say in regards to an Arena in Dunnville, there is also a poll.

County talks arena fundraising
Posted By KAREN BEST, CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER
Feb 6, 2009

Twenty-four. That's how many days will pass before we know if a new Dunnville or a new Cayuga arena is recommended by Haldimand County staff.

At council's committee meeting on March 2, community services general manager Hugh Hanly will table the long-awaited arena report. Money will be a central theme but may take on a different look if the county can access federal government recreation funding.

In its 2009 budget, the Conservative government announced a $500 million Recreational Infrastructure Canada fund. The two-year program will provide financing toward new recreational facilities and repairs for existing community buildings.

"This is an opportunity for us especially if two new arenas are needed," points out Coun. Lorne Boyko. While $500 million is not a lot for the entire country, he notes that two weeks earlier there was no federal funding available.

Coun. Buck Sloat, who represents Cayuga, says it would be great to receive 50 per cent funding for two new arenas.

"We certainly will be applying for this, from this councillor's perspective," he said. "The Cayuga arena is shovel-ready to go. All we need is an engineer's plan and templates exist (for that)."

Last spring, a consultant recommended the county replace the two aging facilities and estimated new single pad arenas will cost at least $8 million each.

Before and since that announcement, the Dunnville Arena and Sport Project group and the Cayuga Think Rink committee have been fundraising and gathering support.

At the end of January, Hanly and leisure services manager Rick Lane met with the groups to talk about fundraising targets.

Details were not disclosed but the Dunnville group tabled its goal at a Jan. 21 meeting and told Hanly it was achievable.

The information gathered from both groups will be used to create financial models and will give a better idea when a project can commence, notes Hanly.

For the final research piece, community services personnel talked to construction firms about costs and have investigated real estate values for land, he adds.

Council has directed staff to do something with the two facilities and after they make a decision, then location will be discussed, says Hanly.

For the Dunnville group, Ramsay Drive remains their site of choice. So far 3,231 people have submitted forms indicating they support this location. An arena committee member said most of the petition forms were clipped from an advertisement in The Chronicle. Some were taken from another local newspaper.

According to the county's chief administrative officer, the report will be based on the premise that any new construction will be financed by the municipality. Don Boyle also said that report can easily be amended if federal financing is secured.

"I fully support investing in recreation facilities," he stated. "There are a lot of county priorities, Ultimately it will be council's decision."

Article ID# 1422663
http://www.dunnvillechronicle.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1422663&auth=KAREN%20BEST,%20CHRONICLE%20STAFF%20WRITER

9 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info Donna, I didn't see in the paper where you could go and comment.

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  2. Too much county time and funding is being wasted away on these arenas and paving arena parking lots. We already have good arenas and sufficient paved parking in Dunnville and Cayuga. There are many more critical priorities that would be better addressed than these arenas. Too much money has already been wasted on studies reviews, re-reviews and development consultations about arenas. A better cause for public protest is that Ramsey road in Dunnville needs to be paved and finished, before even considering wasting any more time or funding on arenas. Last year, funding for the Ramsey roed paving was diverted to paving an arena parking lot. This is stupidity at it's finest.

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  3. We don't need a New Arena, we need roads finished rather than these costly temporary patching fixes.

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  4. I would love to see Dunnville have a new arena, my kids enjoyed many years of hockey and figure skating while they were growing up. At the same time I'm really not sure that the town can afford one right now, and yes I did say the town. Even though the boundaries were supposedly removed through amalgamation, don't think for a minute that Haldimand residents outside of the Dunnville area are going to dig deep to build a new arena in Dunnville.Let's face it, how much support did Dunnville people give to Caledonia when they built their new arena.This is Dunnville's project and it is up to the people and the businesses of Dunnville to make it happen and without some major corporate sponsorship I'm afraid the project is dead in the water.

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  5. Dunnville payed for the Calidonia arena with its old reserve funds the support of the former and then county mayor and the two local councillors tax dollars and programs that were cut from Dunnville .remember Calidonia got a new library ,soccer fields .to replace the land that the arena was built on.Hagersville was give alot of money to fix up tis arena pave its parking lot.Dunnville got very little amount of dollars for its parks arena ball fields we will get to later was the answer that was eight years ago.

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