City council must re-evaluate Sportsplex pool

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/12/2021 (1612 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“We are fine with the city subsidizing recreational facilities to a certain extent, but it has come to the point where any future repairs or funding to the Sportsplex pool are simply throwing good money after bad.”

— A Brandon Sun editorial from Jan. 4, 2014

Brandon City Council approved a proposal last September for engineering consulting services for the construction of an $11.5-million outdoor sports field complex to be built at the corner of First Street North and Veterans Way.

The complex, which is designed to fit a FIFA-sized soccer field with lighting, 11-v-11 soccer fields, a dedicated 9-v-9 soccer field, a cricket pitch, a fieldhouse and a maintenance facility, was a long time coming, as first the city and the province had to find a suitable location for such a venture.

And these kinds of multimillion-dollar projects don’t turn on a dime, so to speak. And with this fall decision, city council has moved Brandon one step closer to the project’s completion, with funding help from the provincial and federal governments. The entire project is slated for completion by Sept. 1, 2024, with construction potentially starting this coming year.

This kind of project shows the kind of facility our three levels of government are capable of completing when all three are working together for a common cause. With that in mind, we suggest it’s time to turn our attention to another much-needed facility in our city — the replacement of the Sportsplex pool.

Yesterday afternoon, the city announced that the much-anticipated reopening of the Sportsplex pool would again be delayed in spite of the completion of repairs to the main drain. Due to “further mechanical issues and deficiencies relating to the main drain” that were recently discovered, the reopening date has unfortunately been pushed back yet again.

As we have previously reported, the pool was slated to reopen after COVID-19 public health orders were relaxed earlier this year, but following a pressure test on the pipes, it was discovered that the plumbing joints were not holding, meaning they had to redo all the pipes and joints.

Now that the Sportsplex is facing yet another delayed opening, we really have to question the wisdom of the continued spending of money on an aging facility — it was built for the 1979 Canada Winter Games — that is often shut down for maintenance and repairs.

The Sportsplex facility, and most notably its pool, has been a financial burden for the city for several years. Recall that back in 2010, Brandon City Council decided to close the pool at the Sportsplex following the completion of the YMCA’s downtown aquatics facility. That decision raised the ire of then mayoral candidate Shari Decter Hirst, who promised to use Brandon’s bid to host the 2017 Canada Summer Games as a way to leverage money to reinvigorate the Sportsplex, while at the same time host another first-class sporting event.

Though she would eventually become mayor, and pursued that promise, the City of Brandon spent $274,000 on bid preparation under her leadership — a bid that gambled on Brandon having the only bid put forward within Manitoba. It was a gamble we lost.

The city needed to provide technical review information showing where the events would be hosted, what the venues would look like, and list what work was required to bring them up to Canada Games standards. Ultimately, the Sportsplex’s lack of sufficient numbers of lanes — among other problems with the bid — sunk Brandon’s chances.

But the former mayor got her wish; city council pulled out $1 million out of the $5 million it had originally earmarked for the YMCA’s aquatics facility and redirected it to repairs at the old Sportsplex pool. In 2013, the facility was budgeted to lose more than $1.1 million. And in 2014, council approved upgrades to the pool pegged at $2.7 million.

The facility has been closed for expensive repairs numerous times over the past decade, and the city continues to operate the Sportsplex facility at a substantial operating loss each year. The Sportsplex pool has clearly outlived its usefulness.

While we agree that the community can use a large swimming facility of this nature, we continue to throw good money after bad. Just this past month, for example, the city posted a tender to its website for a contractor to overhaul the entire roofing system.

Coun. Jeff Fawcett (Assiniboine) was quite correct back in 2018 when he said around the council table that the municipality needs to “take a serious look at the Sportsplex.”

“It’s got some major issues that we just continue to put money into,” Fawcett said at the time.

It’s time that our elected officials give some serious consideration to a replacement of the Sportsplex pool and find other uses for the remainder of the facility. This kind of project will take years to complete, much like the upcoming outdoor sports facility, so let’s get the process moving forward now.

As we said in 2014, it is long past time for a new pool in Brandon — a pool that meets national standards and is something we can be proud of going into the future.