Editor’s Note: This letter is being reprinted since key sections were left out when it was typeset, causing confusion. They’re highlighted in italics. Our apologies to writer Ted Klassen.
Dear Editor,
Let’s talk about the newly proposed sports arena.
Sylvan Lake needs to replace our now condemned curling rink and we also need to replace the hockey rink that, sadly, lost its roof. These two ideas are true.
I wonder if we are going down the right road as we work to accomplish filling this need.
Allow me to deviate just a bit. When most of the citizens of Sylvan Lake decide to choose a new home to live in, if money is easily available and not going to impact them much, I bet lots of us would choose to buy on the lake and live in a house with a swimming pool and have a nice big boat tied to our private dock.
But we don’t go that route because we don’t want to go that far over our heads in debt.
I ask our present mayor and council to take another look at this entire direction because what if the taxpayers in Sylvan Lake don’t want to go this much farther into debt. The new sports arena is going to cost around $20 million. That is money we just don’t have right now so we are going to have to borrow.
Since we are going to replace our curling rink and our hockey rink now, why not put it to a plebiscite so the taxpayers of Sylvan Lake can make the decision as to how much we are prepared to spend to do this.
Just put it in our utility statement next month and everyone will be able to answer yes or no to this $20 million venture.
But give us the facts so we can make a good decision. Let us know how much extra each business and household in Sylvan Lake are going to have to pay each year for the next five or 10 years. If the answer is a majority ‘yes’, then we go ahead.
But if the answer is a majority ‘no’, then we need to look at alternative ways to accomplish the same thing.
Here is one alternative.
We already know that a new six-sheet curling rink constructed on the same site as the old one now stands on would cost $3.5 million.
We also know that to build only the curling ice area with its covered structure would cost $1.5 million.
The ice area is pretty much the same as would be required to house and replace our fallen hockey rink.
What I am saying is, we could spend $3.5 million for the new curling rink and $1.5 million for the new hockey rink.
This way still gives Sylvan Lake community a new curing rink and a new hockey rink.
We can afford $5 million and, furthermore, this way would probably give us our new facilities far sooner, possible even within one year instead of the two or three being mentioned for the construction time required to complete the much more complex $20 million arena.
I think town council should find out what the voters want.
Please, let us decide.
Ted Klassen,
Sylvan Lake