Town receives long awaited pool check from Municipal Affairs

By Nikki Jamieson
Vauxhall Advance
njamieson@tabertimes.com

After months of waiting, the big check for the pool has finally arrived.

During the Vauxhall Business Society’s Annual General Meeting on Nov. 16, Mayor Margaret Plumtree was happy to announce that the $350,000 check from the Alberta government had finally arrived.

“I got good news; the check finally came in on Monday,” said Plumtree. “I didn’t even get to see it, they deposited it right away apparently.”

During the regular April 4 meeting of town council, it was announced that the town had received a substantial grant from the Alberta Community Partnership program, for use to build the community pool.

In the letter informing council of the grant, Danielle Larivee, Minister of Municipal Affairs, wrote that the pool project “exemplifies” the ideal of strong working relationships between communities and regional approaches to municipal service delivery.

To justify the $350,000 grant, the pool had cost $877,500 to complete.
With $210,000 of that amount going towards landscaping, including concrete, fencing, fake grass, and pool accessories — which includes a $75,000 price tag for the slide — the grant accounts for about 40 per cent of the pool’s price tag.

The pool opened in late June, although features like the double-racer slide were not installed until the end of summer. While some landscaping features, such as the faux turf, have been installed, the town still needs to do some paving and further landscaping around the pool.

“There are still future plans of doing the paving and the landscaping, but of course, costs have to be figured out right,” said Plumtree.

“Is there any money left over from what we collected to do those projects? Does the Friends of the Pool have any money left over to contribute to doing those projects? So that’s what we have to look at.”

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