City Council discusses two-year closure of Aquatic Centre

Prince George City Council discussed the upcoming two-year closure of the Aquatic Centre at tonight’s (Monday) meeting.

In April 2024, City Council approved $37 million in facility upgrades for the Aquatic Centre.

Last month, the City announced the Aquatic Centre would be closing for two years, effective January 1st, 2026, to complete these upgrades.

At tonight’s meeting, City Council was presented with two items of correspondence in regards to the two-year shutdown.

The first came from Ameila Merrick, saying there could be positives or opportunities through having only the Canfor Leisure Pool available.

In her letter, she wrote the closure could increase activity downtown as more people use the Canfor Leisure Pool.

She also said the the toilet and shower facility at the Canfor Leisure Pool could be the answer for public washrooms.

This prompted a pair of motions from Councillor Kyle Sampson.

The first asked staff to install “bathing suit dryers,” (as requested in Merrick’s letter) at the Canfor Leisure Pool, unless staff identifies it would require “extraordinary measures.”

“Based on my very limited knowledge and my very brief googling, I don’t believe this to be a very significant investment,” Sampson said.

“If staff can’t find it in the existing budget coming up at the end of the year here, then they can bring back a report and inform Council of that.”

Councillor Ron Polillo was the lone Council member opposed to this motion.

The second motion directs administration to proceed with the intentions of securing a temporary arrangement with the Northern Sports Centre to provide current Aquatic Centre gym users with access at a comparable cost of their existing membership, as well as engaging with the YMCA to gather information on their programs, and explore options to collaborate with the YMCA in supporting or transitioning affected Aquatic Centre members who may prefer an inner-city option.

This motion was passed unanimously.

The other item of correspondence came from Shane Milne, outlining the negative impacts a two-year closure would have for the swimming community in the City.

In his letter, Milne said there could be an immediate degradation of training standards due to the Canfor Leisure Pool not being equipped for a competition level program, as well as the financial burden of not being able to host swim meets.

He urged City Council to commit to the following measures:

• Investigated phased renovation and shorter downtime
• Commitment to partnership for competitive readiness
• Strict and transparent reopening timeline

After highlighting some of the concerns in Milne’s letter, Councillor Trudy Klassen put forward a motion, asking administration to return a report on options to avoid a two-year shut down.

“I think it’s imperative upon us to consider the serious, severe, impact,” she said.

Mayor Simon Yu agreed.

“I personally believe there may be an option out there, but that’s for our staff to find out,” he said.

Polillo called this motion “performative”.

“We’ve had this discussion, we’ve made a decision, we have to move forward,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s going to be difficult for a lot of people, we get that and understand that, and I feel for the Pisces Club, but we heard from staff, 95 per cent of the programming that we currently do, we can accommodate, not everyone’s going top be happy with this decision.”

Polillo added the club will benefit from the investment over the next couple of decades.

Director of Finance and IT Services Kris Dalio added Administration doesn’t want the shutdown either.

“We have had very frank discussions, and they feel this is the way that it has to be done, so we can do this but there’s already been plenty of conversation on this,” he said.

“If we had another way to present to you, it would have already been done.”

Councillor Cori Ramsay called the motion “financially irresponsible.”

“To have done all the procurement, to have contracts in place, the cost of changing the terms of those contracts while they’ve already been signed, this motion is financially irresponsible,” she said.

“I am sorry if that is going to hurt someone’s feelings, but this motion blows my mind, because this is going to cost the taxpayer significantly to do this, I understand that it is absolutely unappealing to have a pool closed, none of us wants that. That is not ideal for our community because it’s an important asset, but the reality is keeping it opened while doing this work, Mr. Dalio said if it was an option they would have presented it, there’s an option to do it, likely, but there’s also a significant price tag that’s going to come along with that, and I don’t think that our residents should have to pay for that, this is already a significant project.”

Councillor Brian Skakun supported Klassen’s motion.

“This is bringing back a report with options to avoid a two-year shut down,” he said.

“Talking to the contractors, or other ways to do it, maybe it’s happened, maybe we can re-enforce that we want it in less than two years, but who says the contracts are going to be broken?”

Yu said an external mechanical room could be built in the meantime.

Klassen’s motion was defeated, with Councillors Ramsay, Polillo, Sampson, Scott, Bennett, Frizzell and opposed.

Following the vote, Director of Civic Facilities and Events Andy Beesley said they would do whatever they possibly could to mitigate the closure and any impacts on local clubs.

Other items discussed at tonight’s meeting included a proposed Citizen Recognition Medal Program, and a report on a Downtown Nightlife Economy Action Plan.