City considers closing plaza skating rink
At a council meeting on Monday night, city staff recommended the decommissioning of an ammonia plant that services the ice skating rink in Canada Games Plaza.
The plant, used to maintain ice regardless of weather conditions, was deemed to be near the end of its life expectancy last July. The cost for replacing the facility was estimated at $550,000, according to a report presented to council. Rob Whitwham, general manager of community services for the City of Prince George, said the facility was used by an average of five people per day, with some days seeing no usage at all so far this winter. The city faces a bill of $31,300 by its refrigeration contractor if the ammonia plant is kept operational for the remainder of the season.
Following the deaths of three men on Oct. 27 at a skating rink in Fernie, B.C. as a result of an ammonia leak, inspections of the Canada Games Plaza plant were conducted by WorkSafeBC and Technical Safety B.C. over the fall and winter.
The deficiencies identified by these inspections were addressed at a further cost of $27,600 to the city, according to a report presented to council on Monday.
The total bill for maintaining the facility if maintained each day for the remainder of the winter would come to $58,900. City staff estimated the cost of maintaining the rink was ordinarily between $40,000 and $45,000 per year.
Rather than closing the outdoor rink entirely, city staff recommended maintaining the Canada Games Plaza rink as an outdoor rink on a weather-dependent basis, much like 20 other such rinks in the city.
Councillors Jillian Merrick and Albert Koehler spoke in favour of the proposal to decommission the ammonia plant.
“While it’s in a lovely spot, it’s not actually a very functional skating rink. It’s not square, there’s no railings, the benches in which you can tie your skates are a fair distance across the concrete,” Merrick said.
A vote on the matter did not take place Monday.
Coun. Garth Frizzell moved to delay a vote on decommissioning the facility to the Jan. 29 budget meeting in order to examine how to better allocate the funds.
“The gut says if only five people are using this, this isn’t something we want to spend $600,000 on,” Frizzell said.
“But I don’t want to just operate only on my gut feelings. I want to take time to give considered opinion to it before we make this decision in a week.”