Just got back from the Save the Island Rally held at Portage City Hall. Approximately 300 people showed up to voice their opinions on the proposed location and a representative was able to make a presentation to council.

The information received from City council has the project scaled back by reducing it to one rink and an expanded wave pool. The second rink will be added as a second phase when they can borrow more money in a few years. The total cost will now be 35.7 million with 5 million from the province and 3.8 million from Federal Funding.

Most importantly the council was adamant that the location will not be changed. It will be built on the island no matter what the residents say.

So now Portage will have two Splash Islands, and 2 separate arena facilities with duplicate costs while losing a competitive pool, a grandstand, a race track and making Island Park a traffic jam and parking lot.

This is progress?

The city council would not answer any of the questions posed by the group, they responded by saying that information would be coming at a later date while forcing through the tender at a special meeting Tuesday at 12:45 PM

If information was forthcoming 6 months ago we wouldn’t be in this situation today.

Organisers indicated they may have as many as 2,000 signatures from concerned citizens on the save the island petition.

So now, where do we go from here?

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