M.D. council clears recreation grant confusion

By J.W. Schnarr
Vauxhall Advance
jwschnarr@tabertimes.com

With confusion surrounding issues with recreation grant funding from the Municipal District of Taber to the Town of Vauxhall, M.D. council took an opportunity to better explain the funding.
During their regular meeting on March 10, council addressed the confusion, citing a story in the March 5 issue of The Vauxhall Advance.

“There was a little bit of confusion there,” said Reeve Brian Brewin.

“So Derrick (municipal administrator) sent this out just to explain what we’ve done with the Recreation Grant for Vauxhall.”
While there was a reduction in grant funding in 2015 from the previous year, funding to individual groups increased. as a net result, Vauxhall will receive $3,700 more in funding this year over last year, up to $136,600 over $132,900 in 2014.

The complete breakdown is as follows:

A decrease in recreation grant funding from $129,400 in 2014 to $120,900 in 2015;
an $11,000 increase to the Jets Stadium Society from no grant in 2014;
a $500 increase to the Vauxhall Baseball Academy to $3,000 from $2,500 in 2014;
a $700 increase to the Vauxhall Legion from no grant in 2014; and
a $1,000 grant to the Vauxhall Business Society, with no change from $1,000 in 2014.

Brewin said many of the changes were made because groups within the M.D. have been coming directly to M.D. council seeking funding.

“We have the requests coming to us for some of these facilities,” he said.

During discussion, Division 4 Coun. Ben Elfring expressed his displeasure over some of the comments quoted in The Advance.

“I didn’t like the comment that they made, that how dare the M.D. say how they are going to spend their recreation grant,” he said. “It’s not their recreation grant. It’s money the M.D. is giving to (Vauxhall) to fund these projects. And if they are not going to do it, we’ll handle it.”

Division 5 Coun. Bob Wallace said he could sympathize with the confusion Vauxhall council was experiencing, and said many of the recreation grant issues were as a result of the Vauxhall Recreation Board being out of commission.

“This was largely a lack of communication,” agreed Brewin. “And again, if (Vauxhall) would have had their rec board up and running, everybody would have understood exactly where it was going.”

Wallace also cited the importance of volunteer groups in Vauxhall to become part of the process.

“These guys are stepping up and doing their best,” he said.

“They’re working with the information they have at hand.”

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