Council holds the fate of the Jasper Heritage Rodeo Association in its hands, and on April 15 that fate will be sealed.
On that day, council will make one of four decisions, and three of those four would mark the end of the 88-year-old event.
Last month, the rodeo association requested a discount of more than $9,000 on the rental of the Jasper Arena—a concession similar to the one that was made last year, when the municipality raised the rental cost by 240 per cent over the 2012 fee.
Although a relatively straightforward request, it has been complicated by a seemingly unrelated event from earlier this year.
In January, there was a fire in the Zamboni room, resulting in a deep cleaning of the arena to remove the substantial smoke damage that was incurred during the short blaze.
That cleaning has since left the facility cleaner than it has been in 50 years, and it has also enlightened the municipality to the cost of a complete scrub down.
Because of this new-found knowledge, administration has presented council with four possible options for moving forward with the rodeo association, and three of them have the association covering the cost of cleaning the entire facility, including the ceiling and rafters, following the event. Until now, the rodeo has only been responsible for a basic cleaning.
The first option is for the municipality to charge the rodeo association the full rental amount, as well as the cost of cleaning the arena. That would tally up to a total of $113,976 per year. That is more than a $100,000 increase over last year’s discounted rental rate.
The second option is to stage the rodeo for three years on an unsubsidized basis with cleaning costs prorated, with the cost coming in at $50,000 per year.
The third option—and likely the only one that would allow the rodeo to take place in the arena—is to exclude the cost of cleaning the ceiling and rafters from the rodeo’s responsibilities, and to provide the association with the discount it has requested for the rental fee. That option, though, would result in a increase of $96,000 to the municipality’s operating budget in order to maintain the present level of cleanliness in the arena.
The fourth and final option is to provide the rodeo with its requested $9,000 discount, while still requiring it to fulfill the top-to-bottom cleaning of the building. That would amount to an additional $32,000 per year, on a three year cleaning cycle, or $48,000 per year on a two year cleaning cycle, or $96,000 for one year’s use.
In the case of options one, two and four, the rodeo would not be able to carry on. As it stands, with the $9,000 discount on its rental fee last year, the event managed to break even. The association has proposed a new event and ways of increasing revenue this year, but none would make enough to cover any of the proposed options.
After hearing administration’s recommendations April 1, both council and members of the rodeo association were “staggered” by the numbers.
“It bears mentioning right now that of all four options, three of them essentially shut the rodeo down,” said Coun. Gilbert Wall, “and the fourth requires a significant gift in kind to make the rodeo viable.”
Waterworth explained that the reason for these large numbers is that, if the rodeo was not to take place in the arena, the municipality wouldn’t need to clean the facility as often. Rather, he said, it’s because of the dust and dirt that gets kicked up over the course of the event that the facility would need to be cleaned on a regular basis to keep it in tip-top shape.
“The ice doesn’t kick up that much dirt,” he said. “And while nobody is saying [the rodeo is] 100 per cent responsible, an entirely different pattern would be possible ... if the rodeo wasn’t there.”
Of the options that require the rodeo to cover the cost of cleaning the facility, Gail Lonsberry, the rodeo association’s treasurer, said “that is not, in my mind, reasonable or fair.”
Nicole Veerman
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