By Mark Squibb/February 17, 2022
Witless Bay council has denied a request for funding from the Town of Bay Bulls to help with repairs to the Bay Bulls Regional Lifestyle Centre.
“I can elaborate further, but for the sake of making a motion, I move the town deny the request for funding for the Regional Lifestyle Centre,” said councilor Alex Troake.
The motion was seconded by Deputy Mayor Lorna Yard and passed unanimously during the February 8 council meeting.
Councilor Nancy Burke was not in favour of denying the request outright.
“It’s a regional facility and I think it’s worth discussing further with the organization to perhaps discuss what it is they’re looking for and how much they are looking for us to contribute and for how long,” said Burke. “I think that we would need more information from them. Perhaps an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) would be something that would be appropriate, rather than outright deny the request.”
Troake made clear he was against that idea.
“We had an impromptu meeting with the Town of Bay Bulls in the fall, and at that time they did mention it, and at the time I believe the figure was between $30,000 and $40,000,” said Troake. “Our request, like everything else we handle, was for them to send a formal request to the town office for our consideration. Now, unfortunately, that request was not sent until after the 2022 budget was approved. So, again, it’s a balanced budget, and to enter into an MOU now would mean cuts from other areas. So, it is something that we can discuss moving forward.”
He added the Bay Bulls Bauline Athletic Association (BBBAA) MOU will expire this year, and that the coming year might be the right time to reconsider how the town funds regional recreation.
“Probably we can look at the bigger picture of recreation assets in general, and have one MOU to cover everything, because, the thing is, the Bay Bulls Regional Lifestyle Centre is regional, but it’s not regional in the sense that there’s an MOU whereby regional partners contribute anything at this point,” said Troake. “If you want to get into that, how does the Puffin Centre fit into that? How do other regional assets fit into that?”
Councillor Jacob Hayden indicated he could see both sides.
“I agree with both Nancy and Alex, actually,” said Hayden. “I do agree that we should support it, but at the same time, we had requested, when we met with the Town of Bay Bulls, that they, like Alex said, issue a formal request to the town, requesting an actual number of funds and such, before we finalized our budget, and that wasn’t done. So, like Alex said, its very hard to pull the money from other aspects that have been budgeted in the town. But, at the same time, I do support the regionalization of the entire area, so maybe that’s something that we can look at and hopefully put into the works for the future budgets that we issue.”
