Fort St John City Council is not leisurely moving towards replacing the North Peace Leisure Pool. At their most recent meeting, the council approved a shift in their budget and prioritized replacing the aging facility.
City council approved the staff’s recommendation to reallocate the $250,000 they initially intended to spend on repaving City Hall’s parking lot to this project, which was originally under the watch of the Peace River Regional District.
The city recently acquired the project from the regional district’s steering committee. After the adjustment, the regional district and city said the collaborative work they have done thus far will not be for nothing.
Now, as Fort St John reassess its priorities, the city’s staff said the additional parking at City Hall must come second to replacing the pool – the regional district started their pool replacement project in 2018.
“A work plan is being developed for the new aquatic facility, and will be built off of the work previously done through the North Peace Leisure Facility Replacement (Steering) Committee,” staff said in their report to the council.
City council agreed the funds would be better off replacing the downtown recreation centre’s pool, and voted unanimously to rearrange their capital works plan in support of the project. Through these changes, the city should be able to start working on replacing the pool without needing to draw money from savings, the report from city staff explained.
As Fort St John moves forward with the project, staff and council members will sit on the newly created Aquatic Facility Working Group. City councillors will act as liaisons to the public’s interest, but will not vote on behalf of the council.
Major decisions will be presented to the council at regular and committee of the whole meetings, city staff explained. The decision of which two councillors will sit on the group was tabled until next month’s council meeting, as two city councillors and the mayor were absent from the August 25 meeting.
