Just the facts, Jack!

So tonight, Occupy Collingwood Friends of Central Park project will be holding a public meeting at the Collingwood Legion to get out “the facts.”

There’s been so much flying around these days about the rec facilities, it’s been tough to separate ‘facts’ from the ‘fiction’.

There’s also been nasty swirly rumours that the VOTE group (you remember them – Voices Of The Electorate; they raised right royal heck about the administration under Mayor Terry Geddes, and promptly went somnolent as soon as Mayor Chris Carrier took office) has raised its head on topics such as the Mountainview Hotel purchase the sale of Collus to PowerStream — questions that seem to be based as much on misinformation than anything.

If the ‘Friends’ want credibility, here’s what they need to focus on tonight:

1. Council’s decision to sole-source: Yes, it is allowed under the town’s procurement bylaw, under certain circumstances, such as if staff determine a company is the lone supplier of a product or service. In this case, it can be argued Sprung is the only company that has the ability to provide an insulated membrane structure, and its structures have not been subject to collapse (I find that article particularly enlightening, as it generally regards the company as an industry leader). My sources have told me the town did review several other similar suppliers, but found none that were able to provide the same level of quality as Sprung.

However, as noted in the Bellamy Report on the Toronto computer leasing scandal, “There should be a strong presumption in favour of mandatory competitive tendering for all significant City procurements. Criteria for exemption from mandatory tendering should be tightly defined in advance.”

2. Haste: Mayor Sandra Cooper has noted several times that municipal staff examined the issue of utilizing fabric structures to cover Centennial Pool and create a new rink at Central Park. I don’t know of anyone who has suggested municipal staff did not undertake due diligence in this review; if anything, I’ve heard exactly the opposite. Municipal staff did an excellent job distilling the points they needed to make for council’s consideration.

However, given the nature of the process examining rec facilities up until that point, council, I feel, had a moral obligation to take the time — I, and others have suggested a maximum of two months — to gauge the public’s opinion prior to making a decision. The same conclusion would have been reached in all likelihood, but at least residents would have felt their voices were heard — and it would likely result in a less-confrontational situation than what we’re faced with today.

3. Operating costs: We’re very familiar with the capital costs; the ‘known unknowns’ are operating costs of these facilities — especially now that the town is examining adding a therapeutic pool to Centennial Pool. The additional ice surface, it’s been suggested, would add $100,000 to the municipality’s operating budget; operating the pool, according to numbers presented a couple of weeks ago, would be another $220,000.

However, Central Park Steering Committee co-chair Claire Tucker-Reid — one of the province’s foremost expert on aquatic facilities — has suggested the cost to operate a pool could be another $100,000 or so on top of that, and that was before we started talking about adding a therapeutic pool. Has the municipality a business plan for operating these facilities?

That’s my advice: don’t stray from those elements. Don’t make it personal. ‘Friends’ is raising some important public policy issues — and at this point do not need to be led astray by malicious nonsense…