A group of Melfort citizens is concerned about the cost to build a new skate park at Spruce Haven.
Gerry Reeder came to the May 15 council with a petition of 631 signatures that was collected over a period of eight days. He said those that signed the petition are concerned about the amount of taxpayers’ dollars going into the project and a lack of transparency about the project to citizens.
“Council needs to keep the public informed as to what’s being discussed and pending before it’s approved,” he said.
Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor, disagreed with that assessment.
“The whole process was something that happened over a two year period and over that two year period were public meetings. We had lots of people come out to the public meetings and the information was disseminated from there.”
Reeder said those signing the petition weren’t happy the city was building infrastructure to service a future recreation complex on the Spruce Haven site.
“We’ve been told, by almost all of the people signing the petition, that they want any available infrastructure money spent repairing our inadequate streets, sidewalks and sewers.”
Reeder told council most of the signers wanted to delay or scrap the skate park project. Lang said there would be a cost to do that.
“By pulling out of those contracts, there’s a cost of a minimum of $0.5 million – and that’s the minimum cost. Then there’s legal fees that could amount to much more than that.”
He added that delaying the project will increase costs in the future if it was retendered thanks to inflation.
The mayor said that while council has debated about the future of the skate park, it decided the cost to cancel was too great.
As for the size, Reeder expressed concern the skate park was too big for a community of Melfort’s size. Lang said the size they chose was the minimum size needed to fulfill Melfort’s needs.
Once the skate park is built, the mayor said it won’t cost much to maintain.
“It’s going to be the cheapest cost of any facility that we own,” he said. “It’s going to be approximately $16,000 a year and that going to be the maintenance cost of the skateboard [park] because essentially once you’ve got it built, there is no daily maintenance per se.”
Right now, the cheapest facility in Melfort, the ball diamonds, cost twice as much to run per year.
A Melfort citizen, Jerrod Davis, has also approached council about organizing a fundraising campaign for the Spruce Haven complex. Lang said the city would help however it could
“I think that’s great. Some citizens have said: if they want the skate park, then why don’t they step up and help out? So now we have that,” he said. “It wasn’t just a commitment to help out with the skateboard park, it was a commitment to help out with the entire development of the Spruce Haven complex.”
The mayor said future development at the Spruce Haven site will begin only as the city can afford it.
