The City of Salmon Arm will continue collecting information from recreation facility users to determine how regional districts may help fund future facilities.
Since February, the Shuswap Recreation Society, at city council's request, has been collecting names and postal codes from users (individuals and teams/sports associations) of the SASCU Recreation Centre and Rogers Rink, as well as city playing fields and courts.
At the Oct. 15 council meeting, Shuswap Recreation Society general manager Darin Gerow shared what data gathered so far shows about who is using what.
For the recreation centre, the 10,142 postal codes collected showed 76 per cent were from Salmon Arm, seven per cent from the Regional District of the North Okanagan (RDNO), one per cent from the Thompson Nicola Regional District (TNRD), five per cent "other" and 11 per cent from the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD), with six per cent of those from Area G, one per cent from Area E and four per cent from Area C.
With Rogers rink, of the 1,577 postal codes collected, 74 per cent of users were from Salmon Arm, one per cent from the TNRD, four per cent from RDNO, 20 per cent from the CSRD and one per cent "other."
For fields and courts, 67 of the 2,032 postal codes collected were from Salmon Arm residents, nine per cent were "other," one per cent the TNRD, nine per cent RDNO and 14 per cent CSRD.
Gerow said the plan is to collect a full year of data that will be brought to council for additional information.
"I’m not surprised by the numbers but I am surprised how much more the arena is used by CSRD," said Coun. Kevin Flynn, who asked that CSRD users of Rogers Rink be broken down by electoral area.
Also not surprised was Mayor Alan Harrison, who made it clear the information gathered will inform what the city might ask of neighbouring local governments to help fund new facilities.
"I don’t think there’s any secret as to why we’re collecting the data – we want to be totally transparent," said Harrison. "The reason we’re collecting the data is because in the future, as we build new recreational facilities, especially indoor recreational facilities, we’re going to be approaching regional districts to help fund them and the percentage we’re going to ask… is the percentage of the number of users from the regional district that use them…"
In July, the CSRD board, including Flynn, its chair, agreed to send a letter to the city, asking it to provide any information such as documentation, data or reports regarding a recreational facilities strategy, particularly as it relates to the development of differential pricing. Flynn told council he'd informally share the information provided by Gerow, but would hold off on a formal presentation until a year of data has been gathered.
