Chestermere city council approved one of two funding requests by the Chestermere Regional Community Association (CRCA) May 22.
A capital grant for $195,000 was approved while an operating grant for $105,000 was tabled to allow the city to discuss possible partnerships with Rocky View County for CRCA operations funding.
“This funding is a necessity for our facility and it helps us to provide the best possible recreation services to the citizens of Chestermere and surrounding communities,” said CRCA General Manager Jody Nouwen.
“The capital’s straight forward, they have needs and that’s the hub of the community,” said Chestermere’s Mayor Marshall Chalmers of the approved grant.
He said that the CRCA is important to the community as both a meeting place and recreation centre.
“Keeping that building operational is clearly important to this community,” said Chalmers.
By the capital grant, the city is helping the CRCA to complete upgrades necessary to keeping the building working for the community.
Nouwen said that they have already started on some of the upgrades the grant is funding.
“We have begun painting in some areas of the facility already and we will be starting on the necessary repairs on the roof in the next few weeks,” she said.
Other capital projects, including the ice plant upgrades for the red arena, will be completed in the coming months as time and facility availability permit.
“The CRCA is very pleased that we received the capital grant funding from the City and we are optimistic that future operational grants will be considered,” said Nouwen.
When it came to the operations grant, Chalmers said that council isn’t necessarily against providing the grant, but they did want to explore all options for the responsible use of tax payer money in achieving this goal, which includes speaking with Rocky View County about partnering to support the CRCA.
“We did want to table it just to give ourselves an opportunity to speak to them to see if they had any wiggle room to help us on that request,” he said.
Chalmers said that Rocky View County has been a great neighbour and that they continue to look at ways, like partnering in support of the CRCA, to strengthen the relationship between the municipalities.
