As our town morns such a terrible death of a young girl,we need to
keep places like the civic center open,i watch kids coming in and playing
basketball until 11pm knowing no one is at home,i watch kids walking home
to who knows what,this summer lets keep the center open our best investment
is our children and there safety we should not put a price on that i will be willing
to pay more taxes if our children can a some fun with there friends and not on
dark streets of our city or down town,lets keep our children safe and may god be
with the McLean family our prayers are with you.
Who said they were closing the civic center for the summer? I know they normally close for pool maintenance in August for a couple of weeks but what did I miss?
yea i know you work there ajay but do u have any concrete information that it may close. or just more of your babble?
They never said they were going to close, they said for maybe 3-4 weeks , but maybe 2 weeks in july and then again in aug.
hopefully not all together 
Ajaye didn’t say that the civic centre was closing for the summer … he said that it needs to be kept open this summer for the kids.
The CFO Dan Rodin has recommended that the civic centre close for 2 weeks as a ‘cost reduction’ of $10K. He is recommending another $33K in cost reductions, but provides no details. It’s on page 3 of his report (see attachment).
Recreation fees will be increased, but only to cover HST. Employees will lose their free passes, which is expected to generate $13K in additional revenue.
$10K is not much of a savings for closing the place for two weeks … if the closure is this summer that is a significant part of the season and of the school holidays.
The city has to come up with savings … they are planning to spend $1,007,000 over Watson Island in 2010 … while they battle in court over Sun Wave getting access to their stuff … a desire to re-hash old history and perhaps ‘kick ass’ also seems to be part of that scenario … and a negotiated resolution seems to be out of the question.
Mr Rodin’s proposal is that some of the cost come out of kids’ access to the civic centre … that’s my read. The financial plan is passed as a bylaw so the council votes on it three times. Public consultation is scheduled for the Apr 26 council meeting.
I think that they should come up with the $10k somewhere else, eg by further increasing fares on the airport ferry. I’d also question whether an administration this size really needs $50K worth of IT equipment this year.
its only 10k why bother if your trying to raise 1mill seems pointless
Does the report say when they are planning on closing the civic centre? If they do, they might as well do it in early September at the same time they close the pool.
My point is that the kids are off school and lots of kids parents work in the
fishing industry so they don’t go on vacation.The sad part is that most parents
cant afford a vacation there kids just play outside all day.I will take a layoff
and go on my vacation I’m thinking of the kids and i seen it for thirty years these
poor kids love the civic center there is roller skating ball hockey there is so much
in the summer to keep the kids busy and away from hanging around down town.
Work there too, was told two weeks total shutdown, not enough kids register for the summer programs (they do need some updating) had to cancel at least three this spring, can’t speak for the other departments but two weeks pool and civic came from the top.
$10,000.00 short fall, and they are blaming it on low enrollment in summer and spring programs. I find it hard to believe they generate this much revenue to be the cause of the short fall. Something smells fishy.
They are talking the month of august and 2 weeks end of June last nights
meeting,this is what i heard from Dan rodins pre budget.The summer programs
get full they are very popular but the sad part is all the wealthy folks sign up
real fast and the low income folks just cant afford it.i has suggested many times
we need to help the folks with low income and have a summer camp for them
were its sponsored by the community and the city.We live in one of the highest
child poverty city’s in our province why cant we have more help for the poor in
our town,a single mom with two kids cant afford the cost recreation and our city
is going to raise the fees in July because of the HST i have a daughter in dance
and it cost thousands and there are alot of Nice kids who would love to dance and
its sad it comes down to the almighty dollar every time and the poor kids have to suffer
its not fair and we need to do something before its to late.
I am with you on this
Sad part is so many parents cannot afford the programs…
Closing the civic centre during the summer is disgusting as it is something to do for the kids whose that can manage to afford it … It is awful that Rodin wants to close the Civic Center period… there has to be a way to find $10,000 … this city is falling a part, why not lay off some of the dam expensive mangement at the city for part of the summer! Have they replaced Micheal Curnes, if not they are saving that salary for now…
Agreed, time to role wages back. Most will say wages will reflect the calibre of talent you want, this seems like a case that has had an opposite effect. If the manager is there to oversee the assistant manager, and the assistant manager is there to oversee the department managers, and so on. This works in huge corporations, but in something this small I see no need for all the middle people.
I totally agree with the previous three posts, administrative costs need to be on par with other municipalities of similar populations.
We all know the “Big Wigs” are not going to take any cuts, so lets cut programs for the people that really need it.
I am getting so sick of this darn town 
They can’t find $10,000? And is the HST going to be the new “excuse” for raising the cost of almost everything now that we use or buy? Just like when there is a frost in Florida, that’s their excuse to raise the cost of a friggin’ orange !! Friggin’ BS! Maybe they should sell all that useless damn outdoor gym equipment and put it back into the summer programs where it would be of more use !
The outdoor equipment was given to us as a grant which mike curnes did and
he was very good at putting together,its a very important tool in helping our
kids keep fit.The civic center and pool are payed for we just need to maintain it,
i know budgets are tight we scale down in the summer but to shut down is not
the answer ,we need to work with the staff that is there we can save over 100 thousand this year if we do that.also the large user groups like minoer hockey
and basketball can maybe pre pay for next year so they save the HST cost this
is happening in lower mainland,we are a caring community and this last tragedy
should never happen again today its this girl next time it could be one of our love
one god forbid.lets keep our children safe.
The real solution to all of our town’s financial problems is to eliminate the unions.
Just terminate all the union contracts, privatize all the services that we can. For those jobs that cannot be privatized, hire people at market wages to do those jobs ie. $10.00 per hour rather than $25.00 plus per hour.
Of course there would be a pretty ugly strike for a few months (the salary savings from this could pay off a lot of the city’s debt) but after that ended we would end up with more city services for less cost. Maybe our property taxes could even be lowered.
How about just dump CityWest and let the local telecom competition begin. =.=’
I am not sure why the pool has to be closed during the busiest time of the year, especially with swimming lessons and the gym open to those from healthy heart and citizens of the community? And when we have more daylight during the summer, exactly what options are available to the youth? Perhaps council, not management can make the right decision and tell management what the people want to see vs convenience for management!! 
This issue of the city lacking dollars is all crap, they never saw that problem when they first started hiring these so-called maverick management guys and gals? That piece of junk which sits outside the civic center has done nothing, I have yet to see any kids use it but I have seen a few adults on it. A grant or not it was wasted dollars and just like the big umbrellas growing up around town. It really did not just start with this recent bunch of idiots in council now but when the other bunch were being led by Pond who told the world we had a Boom happening. Yeah this new bunch of bottom feeders have us all sitting like idiots wondering what the hell is happening or just happened while they keep their agenda to themselves. We wait anxiously for the words to come from ajaye46 to set us free. You and I just keep getting screwed over and over.