Revised repair plan sought

Council asks city staff to explore moving up Memorial Centre repairs to this year

A plan to repair the floor of the Memorial Centre over the summer of 2018 could be revised this week to avoid turfing the Lakers for a season.

On Monday night, council voted to give city staff a chance to meet formally with the Lakers on Tuesday to see whether another plan could be developed.

The original idea had been to close the arena for repairs for three months or so, starting in mid-May 2018.

But now council wants staff to consider options such as doing the repairs in 2017 instead, for instance (which would be better for the Lakers; the Mann Cup, a national championship, could potentially come to Peterborough at the end of the 2018 season).

The Lakers say they might have to sit out the season, if the home games cannot be held at the Memorial Centre in 2018.

Coun. Dan McWilliams said nobody on council wants that.

“Nobody wants you to fold the season,” he told Lakers representatives at City Hall on Monday. “You’re a spectacular organization.”

But city staff says there’s an urgent need to repair the floor of the 60-year-old arena – and they recommend doing it over the summer of 2018.

It might not happen exactly as planned, though.

On Tuesday morning, there’s a meeting between the city and representatives from the Lakers to discuss whether there is a way to do the repairs without jeopardizing a season for the Lakers.

Council also voted Monday night to invite the Peterborough Agricultural Society to that meeting. (The Ag Society holds the Peterborough Exhibition at Morrow Park every August, and the Memorial Centre is used for part of the fair.)

Brian Cowie, the communications director for the Lakers, told city council on Monday that they don’t really have many options for playing elsewhere if the Mem Centre is unavailable to them in 2018.

Initially the team thought they may be able to play in another arena in Oshawa or Cobourg, for instance. But Cowie told council he’s since learned that those two municipalities have already said no because it impinges on the marketing of the local lacrosse teams.

Cowie also said arenas such as the Evinrude Centre or Kinsmen Arena would be too small for their purposes.

Cowie asked council to rethink the idea of doing the repairs in 2018 and come up with another schedule that might not fold the Lakers.

Tim Barrie spoke on behalf of the Junior Lakers. He told council the Junior A team can play at the Evinrude Centre – there’s no concern there.

But the senior team holds 50/50 draws that go a long way toward supporting the juniors, he said – without that revenue, the juniors will suffer.

Barrie also told council they should consider that sometimes teams take a year off never to return. They lose players, fans, volunteers and sponsors – and it’s tough to recover.

He asked council to consider working closely with the Lakers to come up with another plan.

“There are always options, if you look hard enough.”

A proposed land deal between the city and Cavan Monaghan Township, designed to increase the city’s industrial and residential lands, has been put on hold.

City councillors voted Monday night to defer the annexation plan.

Council asked city staff to return to the negotiating table and also come up with further details regarding how much money the new casino is expected to put into city coffers.

There was no timeline placed on the deferral; councillors didn’t ask staff to come back with those reports at any particular time.

Meanwhile city staff had recommended that council plan a public meeting on the land deal in April, and hold a final vote in May.

City council, township council and County of Peterborough council would all have to vote in favour of the deal in May for the boundary change to take effect Jan. 1 (which would have been far enough in advance to change riding boundaries for both the municipal and provincial elections, in the fall of 2018).

Township council voted in favour of moving to a public meeting earlier in the day. But city council voted 7-3 in favour of a deferral in the evening.

Councillors Henry Clarke, Dan McWilliams and Lesley Parnell all voted against a deferral.

The rest voted in favour (although Mayor Daryl Bennett declared a pecuniary interest, since his family owns land in Cavan Monaghan Township).

Coun. Henry Clarke passionately defended the potential deal. He seemed upset that other councillors would consider deferring the land deal.

“You defer it, you might as well kill it,” he said. “We have a deal. All we have to do is have the vision and the intestinal fortitude to embrace it.”

But Coun. Dean Pappas, who had suggested the deferral, didn’t see it that way.

He said he thought it was far too expensive – and that it’s a way of spending the revenues the city is expecting from a casino that isn’t even built yet.

“This is a $135-million deal – that is what we’re endorsing tonight,” he said.

A report from city CAO Allan Seabrooke to councillors said the city would get 4,140 acres in the deal, which would increase the city’s land mass by 25 per cent.

It would give the city 600 acres of industrial lands – and Peterborough is expected to run out of industrial land by the end of 2017.

The annexation would also put the Peterborough Airport and Crestwood Secondary School within city limits, and increase residential lands (which are also in short supply, Seabrooke told councillors Monday).

The city would have to pay the township and Peterborough County $74.4 million over 25 years for the lands plus the roads the township and county have built and maintained.

There are additional expenses to service and develop those lands, too – Seabrooke puts those costs at about $55 million.

After 16 years, said Seabrooke, the city will have recovered all it paid to the township – and also covered the $55 million in additional costs.

Meanwhile the city could expect to create roughly 7,000 industrial and warehouse jobs through the deal, Seabrooke told council.

He also said there will be 4,400 new houses built on the newly acquired lands over the next 25 years (enough for 10,000 residents).

Coun. Lesley Parnell said house prices are high in Peterborough – it’s unaffordable for many younger people to buy homes, she said.

We need houses and jobs too, she added – and this deal would help on both fronts.

She also pointed out that negotiations between the city and the township have been ongoing for 24 years or so.

“We have to look long-term, and not put it off another 24 years,” she said.

But Coun. Keith Riel didn’t like the idea of pre-committing the $3 million the city is expecting from the casino every year.

The casino isn’t even built yet, he pointed out, yet the city is planning what to do with the cash.

“We’re spending casino money we don’t even have yet,” he said.

Coun. Gary Baldwin wasn’t happy with the fact that of that $2.5 million owed to the townshop every year, $800,000 is an “incentive payment” for the township.

“That’s a pretty big signing bonus,” he said.

Coun. Diane Therrien said she needed more information about the cost to the city.

“We need to do it right - and make sure our grandkids aren’t fronting the bill, for this decision.”