Council approves closure of walkway, discusses movement of funds for new arena
Monday’s city council meeting was the second to last before the municipal election will start its next campaign. With the presentation of the Terry Fox Award, the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the new events centre project, and the closing of a walkway in the city, it was a full slate of items on the agenda leading into the municipal election.
The biggest item on the docket was the announcement of the Memorandum of Understanding the City of Prince Albert has put together with the Woodland Cree Nations to work together to find funding for the proposed Convention and Cultural Events Centre. While the talk about the Memorandum was mostly positive, concerns were brought up by Councillors Terra Lennox-Zepp, Charlene Miller, and Tony Head about a few things.
Part of the discourse was around the reallocation of funds used in another city project. As part of the same motion to accept the Memorandum of Understanding, the city proposed using the remaining $845,141.89 left over from the loan used to pay for the Marquis Road West Expansion to help get the project off the ground.
During the discussion, City Manager Sherry Person commented this money would only be moved into an account for the new arena that would show the federal government they have some funds allocated already to make it more likely the city would receive a larger grant, and that the money would be recovered once federal funding is acquired. The City Manager also said they looked into other options to gain that initial funding required by the federal government, but all other options would end up costing the city more money in the end.