On Tuesday St. Albert city council's committee of the whole will be discussing potential options for a new amenity at Fountain Park Pool, as well as performance measures for council's strategic plan.
Back in February, after administration told council that the big blue waterslide at Fountain Park Pool wouldn't be reinstalled as part of the recent rehabilitation project, council passed a motion asking for a list of replacement options, although not limited to just slides.
A recent report to council, written by Shaun Percival, the city's manager of bookings and programs, says administration has come up with two potential new amenity options to replace the slide, however, administration is recommending that council task the citizen-based Youth Advisory Committee with doing some public engagement and providing a recommendation for a replacement amenity.
The two feasible options administration has identified are an expansion of the existing climbing wall, which comes with a $25,000 estimate but would allow three pool-goers to climb at any given time rather than the current capacity limit of two at a time.
The other option, which would be temporarily installed for special events or bookings rather than a permanent fixture, is an “inflatable water play system.”
“These inflatable systems are fun, colourful, and come in a variety of sizes and configurations,” Percival wrote. “They do take up significant space within a facility and will require potential displacement of other users in order to accommodate their size and safety zones.”
“These are not amenities that could be put out daily but rather could be used for special events and at designated facility times, as they require significant set up and take down times.”
Percival's report says an initial estimate for an inflatable water play system is $40,000.
There is no mention of a new slide as potential option to replace the former big blue slide at Fountain Park.
The Gazette will have coverage of the committee's discussion in the Thursday, Oct. 12, edition of the newspaper.
Strategic plan performance measures
Tuesday's committee meeting will also feature council discussing potential performance result statements for council's term-long strategic plan.
A report included in the Tuesday meeting agenda, written by Darija Slokar, the manager of strategic services, and Victoria Petrach, the city's senior strategic business advisory, states that the city's executive leadership team has come up with a handful of ‘result statements’ for each council priority, which the committee of the whole will be presented with on Oct. 10.
As an example, for council's economic prosperity priority, city leadership developed three potential performance results, including: “accessible shovel ready land is available for development”; “housing options enable more people living in St. Albert neighbourhoods”; and “St. Albert is the preferred community of choice for investment.”
Council's strategic plan has five main priorities overall, and besides economic prosperity include downtown vibrancy, adapting to a changing environment, financial sustainability, and community well-being.
Slokar and Petrach's report says that once council approves the performance result statements for each priority, administration will begin to determine how each result statement will be measured.
The Gazette will have coverage of the committee's discussion about the recommended performance result statements in the Thursday, Oct. 12, edition of the newspaper.
