Nottawa Hall board resigns
All members of the Nottawa Memorial Community Centre’s board resigned last week saying they feel disrespected and mistreated.
Chair Marc den Bok referred The Echo to a statement included in the board’s August 6 minutes, when the resignations were tendered, but said he didn’t want to elaborate.
“The decision of our resignation was not reached easily by this board, but we feel that the volume of the message is proportionate to the seriousness of the situation. Our board of volunteers feel disrespected and mistreated by our current council,” reads the statement.
“In regards to the Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program Grant, we congratulate the Avening Hall and know they, along with every other hall in Clearview, are deserving of the funding. However, the process that resulted in them receiving this grant, and an additional $110,000 of taxpayers’ money, was completed with no consultation, communication, notification or justification to other small hall boards or the taxpayer. We can no longer serve as a committee of a council that is not open, transparent, and fair to all communities within Clearview Township. Council’s decision not to include dedicated volunteers in an important decision making processes that directly affects their cause is disheartening and is something that we refuse to be a part of. We note that as we committed to, we used the taxpayer’s funds as responsibly and fairly as possible, and will be presenting this council with a cheque for $10,500, which represents approximately 50 per cent of what is owed by the Nottawa Memorial Community Centre. We refer anyone who wishes to learn more about the circumstances that led to our decision to the minutes of our last board meeting, held August 6, 2015. We as a group wish all of the volunteers on all of the Hall Boards in Clearview every success. Volunteers are one of Clearview’s greatest resources, and we are proud to say that we were able to achieve many of the goals we set out to during our time with the Nottawa Hall Board.”
The statement refers to the township’s application for federal grant money, approved by council on June 1.
“Although all Clearview Halls require accessibility improvements, applying this grant towards the Avening Hall gives Clearview the most opportunity for maxim funding and success with the application,” reported Recreation, Culture and Tourism coordinator Shane Sargant.
In terms of making the facilities fully accessible, additions to halls in Avening, Nottawa and Duntroon were all pegged at $225,000 by R.J. Burnside and Associates. Avening had the biggest overall price tag at $293,000 when all costs were taken into account and it is the only facility where a renovation to the existing structure was deemed not feasible and an addition would be required.
“We felt it was the biggest bang for our buck. To pick one hall is obviously difficult but we thought with the grant application and the process, that picking that hall would make the most sense,” said Sargant.
He said people need to be aware the grant was announced at the last minute and there was a short time to apply.
“We weren’t able to do a lot of consultation. Everybody is deserving of us looking for funding and grant money. If you look at it, we need $1 million to do all the halls and at the end of the day we got $110,000 and now we only need $900,000. There will be more grants out there in the next 10-15 years for accessibility. I have my eye open all the time and so does the rest of staff and all levels of government and when they become available, we’ll start applying for grants for the other halls.”
