The Mayor Closes the Sportsplex Pool

At last night's City Council meeting, the Mayor lead the charge to close the Sportsplex Pool two months after the opening of the Y pool.

I want to be clear that I am a big supporter of the Y's expansion plans in downtown Brandon.

However, I am appalled by the performance of the Mayor Monday night to foist this decision on an unsuspecting Council and community. This was a pre-emptive strike on a swimming community who already feels that they have been abandoned by the Mayor and the majority of City Council.

There is absolutely no comfort within the swimming community that there will be enough water to meet their needs with the reduction in the number of 25' swimming lanes. They feel that there was minimal consultation with them about the original decision almost two years ago. They feel that there was inadequate efforts made to address the financial situation of the Sportsplex pool. Rather than reaching out and building bridges with Brandon swimmers, the Mayor has once again demonstrated that autocracy is alive and well at City Hall.

The Mayor's decision that the Sportsplex pool will be closed two months after the opening of the Y pool is unseemly in its haste.

The Mayor's assertion that support for the Sportsplex pool threatens the success of the Y's expansion is fear-mongering at its worst.

The Mayor's zeal to ram home the pool closure amendment also subverted legitimate debate about public access, fees, the City's $250,000 a year funding for the next 20 years, and other clauses within the MOU that deserved a public airing.

The Mayor's action's Monday night begs a number of questions:
- If the closure of the Sportsplex pool was so critical to the Y's business plan, why was it not included in the Memorandum of Understanding brought forward at Monday's City Council meeting?
- Why did the Board of the Y not insist on this clause; and if they didn't ask for it, why did the Mayor put it in?
- Why did the Mayor apply such pressure to Council to amend the previously approved MOU at the last moment at 10:30 on a Monday evening?


The Mayor talked long and loud about ensuring the financial viability of the Y, but if anything jeopardizes the success of the Y's expansion plans, it is his actions Monday night. The success of the aquatic component of the Y project depends upon the good will of the current Sportsplex swimmers to transfer their membership and loyalty from the City owned pool to the private membership-based Y pool. Monday's actions are not a good strategy to achieve this objective, and I would urge the Y Board to consider the longer term relationship they need to have with Brandon swimmers, the damage the Mayor's actions could cause, and reconsider this amendment to their MOU.

The unseemly fashion that this motion was sprung upon Council- without consultation with the swimming community, or even it seems the Y itself, is plain wrong.

The Mayor talks about risk to the City if the Sportsplex pool remains open beyond two months after the opening of the new Y facility; but if future Councils reverse this decision, then would not the Y have a case to make against the City that they broke the MOU, and won't we, the taxpayer be forced to pay more to make up any shortfall as we would not have honoured the agreement? This is a costly and foolish mistake and the taxpayers of this city will once again be left holding the bag.

This decision is fundamentally undemocratic, and reflects the ongoing issues many Brandon residents have with the lack of consultation and communication the Mayor adopts on major policy decisions.

The days of the Mayor ramming through important policy without public input should be long over,but apparently they are not. I would suggest that users of the Sportsplex or those tired of this style of governance should make their unhappiness known through the media, to their City Councilors, and to the Mayor's office.

I look forward to debating this decision with the Mayor during the election.

An Election Issue? The Sale of the former Convergys Building on Sixth Street

The tenders closes today (Aug 3) on the former Convergys Building. Some food for thought when evaluating whether we got good value for the sale.

About 25 years ago, Monty Nathanson bought it from Co-op and sold it to the City for over a million dollars (I heard $1.4, but that's just a rumour and that was serious coin back in the day!). They then put a lot of dough into renovating it for an Arts Library complex. Eventually, AGSWM and Library moved across the street to new digs. The City purchased more land and closed Seventh Street to create a parcel of property for a public safety building. That didn't happen, but they did wind up renting it out to Convergys. There is some speculation that the lease hold improvements that Convergys put in gave them a substantial tax/rent holiday. Could be true... What we know for sure is that it has sat empty for over two years when Convergys left town- with no taxes being paid.

So now the tenders are closed and we'll find out to what higher and better purpose the building will be used for. Perhaps seniors housing? perhaps a police services building (gotta' love all the wiring and technology upgrades that Convergys added)? perhaps an educational centre for the College, Neelin, Westman Immigrant Services, with room to spare for a daycare and museum/ archives!

These are all interesting ideas with public value. If the City and Mayor decides that there is more value in cash with a tidy commercial sale, does it recover the opportunity costs of lost taxes, as well as the initial purchase price and public investment in leasehold improvements?