The culture and recreation department is asking council’s permission to book the Jasper Arena for August 2015—marking the 2014 Jasper Heritage Rodeo as the last to occur in the facility.
The request—which was presented to council Oct. 7—comes after significant debate last spring, which led to council asking the rodeo association to look for an outdoor venue. The debate was around the cost of cleaning the facility following a rodeo event—a discussion that became pertinent after the Jan. 26 arena fire, which saw the entire building scrubbed from top to bottom by professional cleaners.
Despite council’s efforts to push the event outdoors in 2014, there wasn’t enough time for the rodeo association to work with Parks Canada to come up with a new location, so the event was ultimately held in the arena—with the condition that the association complete additional cleaning and seek out a new outdoor location for 2015.
According to Gail Lonsberry, rodeo treasurer, talks with Parks have been progressing positively, and the association is currently waiting for confirmation on a location. She said she expects to receive it by early next month.
“It really does sound positive,” she said. “They haven’t closed the gate on us at all ... and we’re looking forward to getting moving on it.”
The 2014 event marked the rodeo’s 37th year in the arena, after moving indoors in 1977 when the Jasper Curling Club took it over. Originally, it was held on the land where Whistlers Campground is now.
Yvonne McNabb, director of culture and recreation, came forward with the request to rent out the arena for another event. She said the sooner she knows what’s happening with the rodeo, the sooner she can plan a schedule for next summer.
“We’re already receiving phone calls, but we’re putting people on hold at this particular point. The sooner we know the easier it’s going to be for planning and adding new events to the facility or rearranging some of our existing events,” she said.
Although presented to council as a request for decision, Coun. Rico Damota said he wasn’t convinced the use of the Jasper Arena was up for council debate.
“Wouldn’t this just be an administrative matter?” he asked, noting that council doesn’t normally have a say in what is and isn’t booked in the municipality’s facilities.
Mayor Richard Ireland agreed and suggested that administration rewrite its request, so that it’s a request for direction rather than decision.
“That may be a better avenue to keep a demarkation between governance issues and administrative issues,” he suggested.
“Although this has wound up in the political domain, it really is an administrative matter how we use our facilities.”
The request will be back before council on Oct. 21.
It’s been a rough few years for the rodeo association.
Its purpose has always been to generate funds for other groups and community organizations, but in recent years it has had trouble making ends meet, let alone giving out grants.
Part of that struggle was a significant increase in the rental fee for the Jasper Arena. That increase came after the municipality did a Services and Structural Review, which showed it had been undercharging for years.
Things were further complicated for the rodeo association when the arena caught fire Jan. 26. That fire created a significant amount of damage and required a top-to-bottom commercial cleaning of the facility, leaving it spick and span.
Administration advised council that it would be impossible to keep it that way as long as the rodeo continued operating in the facility under its current contract. So, in May additional cleaning responsibilities were added to the contract to deal with the dust that’s kicked up over the four-day event.
Despite those increased efforts, administration and council were disappointed with the state of the arena following the event.
“This time the rodeo did clean the rafters above the ice, but as you know from when we did the tour of the facility,” said McNabb to council, “there’s still a lot of dust that was created and it’s still on all the beams and heating fixtures and framing; it’s just residue from the dust from the rodeo.”
To professionally clean the facility again, returning it to the same state it was in before the rodeo, it would cost the municipality upwards of $90,000. It’s for that reason that the both council and administration pushed to have the event moved outdoors.
“[The arena’s] not set up for an indoor rodeo,” said Damota. “We don’t have the proper ventilation.
“I don’t want the rodeo organizers to think that we’re driving them away from having this event in Jasper; I think it’s a great thing to have.
“I hope there’s an understanding that there’s no animosity here.”
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
