Smithers Interior News Article Nov. 3, 2010
y Shannon Hurst - Smithers Interior News
Published: November 03, 2010 8:00 AM
Members from the Village of Hazelton, the Regional District and the District of New Hazelton met last Wednesday to discuss the plans for the new arena.
“We had Tom Madden and Jeff Holland give us an update on what was going on and what their plans were,” New Hazelton council member Mike Weeber said. “They said they were still very open as far as figuring out what the community needs were which everyone was happy about.”
According to Weeber, Hazelton Mayor Alice Maitland said she was quite concerned about having to pay any kind of taxes because they have a tough enough time paying for their costs because they don’t get enough tax income as it is.
“The Regional District talked about trying to scale it down to between $7 and 8 million,” Weeber added. “There was also some discussion around the two projects which are the old arena and new one and we felt it wasn’t a good idea to talk about the two at once. The older arena is a separate project and we need to focus on the new one right now.”
Weeber also said while everyone knows that there are a lot of wishes for the future of the facilities in the communities, funding is a major issue.
“We don’t have a main industry to help out with costs for these projects in our area,” Weeber said. “And the Regional District is very hesitant to start shelling out cash.
“We know we definitely need a new arena but it was a general consensus that everyone needs to be very sober about what we as a community are going to do.”
In addition to the building costs, Weeber also mentioned the issue about what it will cost to run and upkeep the new facility as that will be an area of concern in the future too.
As for keeping the building costs within the expectations of the Regional District, Holland stated in last weeks interview that the building committee was aiming for those numbers and he believed it would be attainable.
Overall the big concern amongst the three parties gathered last week were the costs to build but Holland and Madden explained the various options for seeking funding which the Skeena Ice Arena Association fully intends to try to procure.
