According to the RM, the gravel parking lot will save 600,000$ in construction costs. Yet when questioned the RM indicated that the overall project cost would not be reduced so it would appear this is more of a cost cutting move rather than the smoke screen of LEED certification.

And with less than 400 parking spots, that means when the facility is at capacity every vehicle will have to bring 5 people . No one is expected to walk to the facility due to its out of the way location. Can anyone be expected to walk across the lake or the rickety bridge during the November to March period we call winter?

This raises the question, how many other corners are being cut to get the facility built? The RM assured us they will still have cup holders on the seats but Portage la Prairie is now left with a facility with no paved parking lot, no competitive pool, only one arena, no racetrack, no grandstand, and no respect from the rest of the province over the bungling of this entire project.

35 Million Dollars for a gravel parking lot. It would be funny if it wasn’t the residents and future generations of the City and RM that will be left with this legacy of mismanagement.

Posted By Rob Swystun, The Daily Graphic

Paving the entire Portage Credit Union Centre parking lot could prevent it from earning precious points toward its environmentally-friendly certification, Portage la Prairie city council heard at its regular meeting Monday.

The city has applied to the Portage la Prairie Planning District to reduce the number of parking stalls at the multiplex, currently under construction in Island Park, from the required 410 stalls down to 387 and to reduce the number of paved stalls to 86.

The city’s current bylaw for parking lots, which didn’t take into consideration Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification when it was drawn up, states they must be paved.

“In the past, the City of Portage la Prairie has enforced the requirement to have parking lots paved,” Coun. Jeff Bereza read from the Planning District application.

However, he also told council, paving the entire parking lot would cause the building to potentially miss out on four points toward the total 33 points it needs for a LEED silver-level certification.

LEED certification, handed out by the Canada Green Building Council, is based on how many points a building has, with points being given for environmentally-friendly aspects such as gravel parking lots as opposed to paved parking lots.

Adding to the conundrum, Bereza pointed out, is the fact the project’s federal funding of $3.3 million and the province’s $5 million contribution require the building to reach silver LEED certification and that funding could be in jeopardy otherwise.

While the parking requirements for the multiplex call for 410 stalls, based on the city’s formula for figuring out how many spaces are needed per seat in the complex, the site plans have room for only 387, making the application for the variance necessary.

However, having an unpaved parking lot could make for a messy situation when the ground is wet, Coun. Walter Keryluk said.

“What we’re going to be doing is spending extra money cleaning up the floors,” he predicted.

Jan. 27, 2009 Presenter to R.M. of Portage la Prairie Reeve & Council: Jim Pallister

ESTABLISH PRIORITIES AND CONSULT THE PEOPLE BEFORE MAKING MAJOR CHANGES. PROVIDE LEADERSHIP.

Former MB Premier (and Flee Island farmer) Douglas Campbell (whom I’ll bet many of you knew) was asked “what was his greatest accomplishment in over 40 years in politics?” His answer, “Rural Electrification”. It doesn’t sound very glamorous at first, but think of how many lives it changed. Empowering so many who had been left out. Many positive developments then become possible.

Last week I was at MB Ag Days, a huge trade show. As I walked around there was row upon row of booths of people selling everything from tools, innovations and software to training programs. Then you walk into this room full of the huge, dazzling BIG IRON. But I know that if I’m tempted to spend all my money on the shiny big combine & tractor $400 – $500,000, I’ll have nothing left to invest in all the other smaller, mundane but essential investments. That’s why I always have to remind myself to first establish priorities. You gentlemen are all farmers. I know you wouldn’t spend one whole year’s farm income on one big expensive and non-essential item. Not unless you’d first set it as a priority.

I.  STRATEGIC PLANNING AND PRIORITIES MUST FIRST BE DONE.
The Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie must do a prioritizing exercise. (If anything has been done in this regard it hasn’t been shared with us.) For example: What policies will most empower and improve the lives of people? As was well pointed out here at the last meeting, “the R.M. is about people”. Which choices will add economic growth and attract new investment to the rural? What is the private sector doing already versus what necessary things will not happen without R.M. involvement? Can we partner with the private sector to make good things happen? Brainstorm. Think outside the box.

BUT – to govern is to choose how to allocate limited resources. As in business, if you say yes to a huge expensive project it will mean saying no to many other things. Some of our wisest people have been called “naysayers” for expressing reservations about spending all our available resources on a single recreation/entertainment project. But this council will become, for years to come, a huge naysayer on everything else. You and your successors will have to say no to a great many positive ideas and opportunities if all our capacity is tapped out. The current plan is to borrow & spend every dime we can on this multiplex.

Like Douglas Campbell, I know all of you have the best intentions for our people and as in Doug Campbell’s time, we in the Rural still face a great many challenges and inferior services compared to our urban friends. In what importance would you rate them?

For example:

• Water: Many still have no safe dependable drinking water. Much progress, but more to go.
• Internet: This is the highway of the future for quality of life, education & business. Dial-up, by comparison to high-speed is just a rutted dirt road. For $1 – $2 million we could probably deliver high speed to us all. Few have it now.
• Education: If we were to re-direct the $35 million could we possibly have our own Portage Community College Campus? Many towns our size and smaller, likeCrookston, Yankton, S.D., Bottineau, The Pas have post secondary institutions. Changing Portage into a “College Town” could be a solution to so many of oursocial, demographic and economic challenges. Distance is a barrier to educationfor our rural and “at risk” youth. Attracting and retaining young people; providingopportunities for experienced people to re-train, and others to teach; creatingsynergies with our strong local industry and research sectors; having a well trained entrepreneurial workforce to draw other investment would all lend a great vitality to this community. Voluntary community and industry financial support would be much greater for education than for entertainment. Education is an investment in Human Capital; not in concrete. It keeps on giving.
• Direct Education Support. If not build a college, with the magnitude of the multiplex investment we could pay post-secondary tuition for all R.M. residents and their children. The R.M. is about people. Wouldn’t this change lives for the better? Our family supports this type of initiative as we’ve helped over 20 local 4-Hers with education bursaries.
• Recreation – Hiking or ski trails, biking trails, snowmobile trails, investing in existing rural hockey rinks and city arenas, curling, golf, indoor soccer, skateboard park, Delta Beach improvements. We’ll have to say no to assisting any proposals like these even though they might be quite inexpensive by comparison.
• Hospital Renewal. It will have to wait.
• R.C.M.P., public safety. An increasing concern of rural residents.
• New Industry. What if a new job-creating investor comes to the area and needs some       infrastructure? We’ll have no borrowing capacity. They’ll have to go elsewhere.
• Entertainment Multiplex. There are 3 active gymnasiums and several recreation pools available now in Portage. No extra hockey ice will be gained. The main added benefit of this investment, then, would be a better venue for Spectator Events.

Looking at all these options then, are we sure that the last one is the top priority by a great enough margin to come at the exclusion of all the others?

II.  PROPOSED R.M. COMMITMENT TO THE MULTIPLEX IS BIG.
$8 million is greater than the entire cost of running the municipality for a year (~ $7.5 – $8 million). The burden of carrying our share of the operating losses will add $400,000 and increasing annually, so will add over 5% to R.M. spending PERMANENTLY. At today’s interest rates that is equal to the cost of borrowing, servicing and never paying back an additional $8 million loan. The additional cost to each taxpayer then is easily calculated: Additional taxation equal to more than one whole year of his or her municipal taxes plus a permanent tax increase of over 5%.

III.  PRESENT COUNCIL HAS NOT SOUGHT AUTHORIZATION FROM THE RATEPAYERS on this major departure from long time policy of not funding Recreation and Entertainment.

I asked one councillor why they had never provided any significant support to rinks and community clubs in Edwin, McDonald, Oakland, High Bluff, St. Ambroise, Poplar Point or Oakville and now we’re spending over $1.1 million and $50,000 annually per ward on recreation and entertainment in Portage. “That was the policy.” Why had the R.M. never significantly sponsored the curling club, snowmobile club or the golf club? His answer, “They never asked.”

That spoke volumes – it told me that on this multiplex you had been approached by a well organized lobby who said, not unlike George Bush, “Are you fer us or agin us?” But you first needed to look at all your priorities and achieve a consensus before splitting council and dividing community. Leadership is needed here.

None of the existing council ran for office on a platform of involving the R.M. in this project. It was not an issue in the 2006 rural elections. Therefore this Reeve and Council were elected for 4 years on the understanding that they would run the R.M. delivering the usual programs and services spending about $7.5 – $8 million per year, or about $30 – $32 million total. Instead you are intending to spend as though you were elected for 6 years or more. Burdening future elected councils with $16 million equivalent of your debt and loss obligations and removing all their flexibility without even consulting the ratepayers. This is not democracy. You might have the power. You don’t have the right.

As farmers how would you feel if an employee spent a whole year’s crop on one non-essential item; without your approval? In this situation, gentlemen, with respect, it is you who are the employees, the public servants of the ratepayers.

CONCLUSION:  MY RECOMMENDATION:

Once you’ve first established priorities AND consulted ratepayers, then act. This is my proposal to you. Take the time, get a committee working on it, find out what else we might be able to do with our finite resources. We will find there are things of a much higher priority, greater significance or better value than the present proposal. We will be totally precluded from doing any of them if we spend all our money on one Big Iron, Big Concrete project.

If you vote for this project, you are voting against all other forms of recreation, against education, against hospital renewal, against all proposals in the foreseeable future. Without study you will have closed all other doors.

If for no other reason, since last summer the economy has declined sharply, everyone’s savings have been cut by 1/3, grain prices are only ½ – 2/3 what they were. Let’s take some time here to think, study and re-assess.

It is interesting to note that the City does not foresee any increases to it’s operating budget because of the Multiplex. I guess since the RM will now be paying upto a third of all operating deficits for recreation programs in the City, even including the Youth Drop In programs they will be able to shift the costs to the Farmers , Commercial Businesses and residents of the RM.

A Great deal for the City, the Mayor should be very proud of his accomplishments.

From The Daily Graphic

Portage la Prairie Rotarians received the first virtual tour of the redesigned Portage Credit Union Centre at their weekly meeting Tuesday.

Jennifer Sarna, director of recreation services with the City of Portage, showed members of the Portage Rotary Club a nine-minute video showed them a virtual mock-up of the facility in its scaled back form.

“This truly will be, under one roof, a place for everyone,” Sarna told Rotarians after the video had played.

Accompanied by songs such as The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Doc Walker’s “Beautiful Life” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” by Bachman Turner Overdrive, the virtual tour took Rotary members and guests over the outside of the building, through the arena and common areas and into the aquatic centre.

This virtual tour, in draft form at the moment, will be presented at public forum in the near future, Sarna announced, although when and where still haven’t been decided.

The director of recreation and leisure services also showed Rotarians a quick slide show of the facility that included a secondary arena, which is to be built in a second phase. Sarna told Rotarians to ignore that portion of the building for now, but hinted it may be coming soon.

“We’re working really hard to find funding for that,” she said.

Sarna explained the wave pool in the Shindleman Aquaplex would be the biggest in Manitoba, as well as pointing out other aspects of the water park, which, according to the virtual tour, will have a waterslide and murals of buffalos on the walls.

“We also have a lazy river,” Sarna mentioned, “and the hot tub is about a 30-person capacity.”

In response to questions from Rotary members, Sarna said the multi-purpose room capacity will be about 250, with room for another 100 if the doors to the atrium are opened.

She also said wheelchair accessibility was a top priority for the multiplex.

“We absolutely kept mobility and accessibility options in mind,” Sarna explained, “when designing the place.”

Sarna handed the reins over to city manager Dale Lyle to answer questions about the multiplex’s operating budget.

Lyle said the City and Rural Municipality of Portage have been working on a draft operating budget for the past few months, but it has been delayed while the RM works out funding issues.

The city manager also commented the operating budget for the multiplex would not significantly increase the city’s operating costs as it pays for recreation services currently, anyway.

Needs $6.2 million for its commitment to the multiplex project

Posted By Angela Brown, The Daily Graphic

Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie’s multiplex borrowing bylaw passed first reading at Tuesday’s council meeting despite opposition from some ratepayers.

About 40 people filled up the council chambers to hear the results of the vote.

First reading of the bylaw was carried 7-1, with Coun. Bill Alford voting against. The bylaw would allow the RM to borrow up to $6.2 million to cover its $8-million commitment to the new PCU Centre project.

To date, the RM has contributed about $1.8 million to the project from its reserve funds. That money went toward concrete pilings and foundation costs.

The new bylaw replaces a local improvement plan struck down by the Court of Queen’s Bench in December, which allowed the RM to borrow up to $8 million for its share of the $35.7-million project currently under construction at the Portage fairgrounds on the Island.

The new bylaw will now go to the Manitoba Municipal Board for approval before it is given second and third reading by council. The bylaw can proceed without a public hearing if approved by the MMB.

RM resident Kam Blight made a presentation to council asking for the bylaw to be tabled until the ratepayers have received more information.

“How can you vote on a bylaw without discussing it with the ratepayers?” he said to council.

Trimble said the multiplex project needs to proceed to meet specific deadlines.

“We’re in the middle of the project and there are time restraints, so we felt we should go ahead,” Trimble said following the meeting.

“At our last council meeting, we instructed our CAO to put the borrowing bylaw together to come to council at this meeting. So, it was done and we gave it first reading,” Trimble said following the RM meeting Tuesday.

By Norm Picard

From The Portage Daily Graphic

The new proposed multiplex for the City and Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie does sound like a very entertaining proposal. Hopefully, it will be built to standards that would attract large scale completions such as provincial and Canadian swimming and diving meets. Perhaps Canadian and World Junior Hockey Championships, and even year-round provincial and

Canadian track and field competitions.

As I sit here and peruse the colourful brochure put out by the City of Portage and the RM, that is what I envision.

Unfortunately, what has transpired over the past months my vision is becoming obscure and hazy. Is this just a “Field of Dreams”? It may just be that.

It certainly would be nice for a small city such as Portage la Prairie to have a big city complex. But are we approaching this with big city ideas and small town planning?

Because of municipal blundering (this is not the first time) and poor planning by the city, this project is already being downgraded to the point where the city will have a very nice community complex for its citizens, but will be unable to entertain large-scale competitions to help pay for the complex and bring money into the community and businesses.

Another interesting aspect to add to the bizarre is why are we building this complex on land the city does not own and, therefore, will have to pay a lease forever and a day> Also, why build it on an old river bed where we can not find bedrock to build on? At this time, there is no proper access to the site; a causeway will have to be built off residential streets.

It has become apparent that land was available at very reasonable prices and in proximity to hotels, restaurants and shopping malls. Are we missing part of the puzzle?

As President George W. Bush said in his farewell speech. Maybe we are “misunderestimating” your capabilities as a true council body.

Are taxpayers going to become the carriers of of a multi-million-dollar mortgage?

Planning and going ahead without proper planning and and not looking at the possible consequences can be destructive. Let’s not burden taxpayers with the consequence of poor planning, blundering or foresight in this venture.

Anyone who attended the RM council meeting on Jan 13th will certainly understand how accurate this cartoon is.

From The Daily Graphic

The Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie has gone back to square one for the PCU Centre.

“We just authorized the CAO (chief executive officer Daryl Hrehirchuk) to draft a general borrowing bylaw,” Reeve Toby Trimble said in an interview after RM council’s regular meeting.

The bylaw, once it’s drafted, will seek to borrow up to $6.2 million to meet the RM’s $8-million commitment to the multiplex.

Coun. Bill Alford was the lone vote against the motion.

“I’m just trying to represent my ratepayers,” Alford stated. “And most people who have come forward are the naysayers.”

When drafted, the bylaw will need to pass first reading from RM council before it goes to the Manitoba Municipal Board for approval. If approved there, it will come back to council for the second and final readings.

Unlike the last time the RM sought to borrow money for the multiplex, under a local improvement plan, a general borrowing bylaw doesn’t require any public hearings.

Currently, the RM has contributed $1.5 million to the currently-under-construction project from its reserve funds. That money went toward concrete pilings and foundation costs.

Now that the reserve funds have been spent, Trimble noted, the RM will have to pull back from the project until it can procure the remainder of its commitment via the general borrowing bylaw.

It will probably take a few months for the bylaw to be drawn up, pass first reading, get approval from the Municipal Board and get final approval from council, the Reeve added.

From The Portage Daily Graphic

Without a doubt, the big story coming out of the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie in 2008 was the PCU Centre.

The biweekly meetings of the RM of Portage council had very few residents in attendance until councillors voted on their 2008 budget on April 22. That day, the gallery was filled with ratepayers angry over how the RM planned on paying for the $8 million it promised to give to the PCU Centre project.

Along with the budget, council voted to accept a tax levy bylaw that allowed the RM to increase the municipal millrate from 19.98 to 21.08 mills. The increase meant residents in the RM would see a 5.1 per cent jump in their property taxes in 2008.

Seven farmers from the Oakville area attended the meeting and spoke to council about the effect the bylaw would have on them. They were concerned the boost in property taxes to pay for the multiplex would hit them especially hard because of the amount of taxable land they own.

Farmers in the RM of Portage who own 400 hectares of farmland assessed at $1.2 million saw their taxes jump by $717.60 this year, just to pay for the multiplex, not including the rest of their taxes.

The group of farmers told council they feel the multiplex was being built mainly for city residents, but was being paid for by landowners from outside city limits. Abe Peters, one of the farmers, told reporters after the meeting although he will probably never use the multiplex, he’s more than happy to help pay for it, he just wanted to be taxed the same as everyone else.

“I think they should put the funding on residences only, so across the board everybody pays the same amount per residence. I think that would be fair,” he explained. “I’m not against the rec centre; I just don’t like the way it’s being funded.”

Despite the concerns, the RM passed the levy.

Reeve Toby Trimble told them there was nothing council could do to change the tax increase because the RM had already committed the money to the multiplex and had passed the necessary borrowing bylaw at a public meeting on Aug. 14, 2007, which no ratepayers showed up for. That answer did not sit well with the farmers.

“We were harvesting, and you don’t stop harvesting to come to an RM meeting, because what’s better? What’s more important?” said Peters.

Having angry ratepayers at RM meetings became commonplace after that, with residents coming to every meeting where anything multiplex was voted on.

Despite the concerns brought up at every meeting, council continued to vote in favour of the project. On July 30, the ratepayers decided to take the RM to court to try to quash the borrowing bylaw.

Through their lawyer, the ratepayers argued the RM should be forced to pass a new borrowing bylaw because of changes made to the design of the multiplex, and they said the RM had not properly notified residents of the true costs of the bylaw.

“Initially, the proposal was two arenas, a competitive pool and various other things,” explained their lawyer, Grant Driedger. “When the cost figures came in higher than they initially expected, they had to scale that down considerably.

“So the bylaw that they’re relying on to authorize them borrowing money to fund the project was based on Plan A, and now they’re going ahead with Plan B, so they’re borrowing the same amount of money, but getting a significantly lesser facility.”

When the first tenders were accepted by council at their meeting on Sept. 23, so many people showed up at the council meeting that day that the meeting was moved to the Herman Prior 55-plus Centre so the roughly 70 people had room to sit.

Despite the opposition, council voted 4-3 to accept the first two of four tenders on the project. Coun. Ray Davidson of Ward 4, Reeve Toby Trimble, Coun. Larry Gibbs of Ward 2 and Ward 6 Coun. Owen Williams all voted to accept the tenders.

Ward 1 Coun. Garth Asham abstained from the vote pending the results of the court case filed against the RM by ratepayers. If Asham had voted against the tenders with Ward 3 Coun. Terry Simpson, Ward 7 Coun. Bill Alford and Coun. Arnold Verwey of Ward 5, the resolution would have been defeated, and the project effectively would have been scratched.

After the meeting, Trimble said although the vote was close, he’s glad council will be able to go ahead with the multiplex.

“I would have to say I’m feeling very relieved,” he admitted. “I went into the meeting feeling confident that the outcome would be the way it was. I’m happy that council members stepped up and passed the approval of the two tenders.”

With council’s vote, construction of the PCU Centre was started at the fairgrounds on Island Park.

When the notice of application hearing was held at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Portage on Nov. 17, the judge said he would need more time to make his ruling. On Dec. 9, Justice John Scurfield made his ruling, and it did not go in the RM’s favour.

In his ruling, the judge said the RM of Portage did not present an adequate plan to go ahead with borrowing its share of the PCU Centre’s funding — $8 million — when it passed its local improvement plan and borrowing bylaw for the facility.

Those obligations included knowing how much money will be needed for a project, how that money will be raised and how any proposed tax-based fundraising will be calculated and imposed on taxpayers, as well as designs and locations for projects.

“The RM did not act in bad faith,” Scurfield said in his decision. “It simply acted prematurely. The right to estimate does not include the right to guess or speculate. An estimate must have its roots in a reasonably developed plan. There was no urgent reason to proceed with the local improvement plan prior to developing the proposal to a stage where it could provide a reasonable level of reliable information to its taxpayers.”

The decision quashed the RM’s borrowing bylaw, and leaves the $8 million from the RM in limbo. Following the decision, Trimble had very little to say.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk to our lawyer, and at this time we have no comment,” he said.

No one from the RM has commented publicly about what they plan to do.