By Karen Boden
PORT ALBERNI — City Coun. Cindy Solda is counting the blessings associated with abandoning the current Alberni District secondary school and building a brand new facility off Roger Street.
“The big thing is that they (the school district) want to use our services - the city services,” said Solda. “From the city’s perspective, we also see the advantage.”
Solda said the city’s aging pool is going to need work soon and the track at Bob Dailey Stadium needs resurfacing.
“That’s really big dollars and there’s some partnership potential there.”
SD 70 Trustee Glenn Wong said that while the Ministry of Education has a requirement that the district also develop its own recreation fields on the new school site, the proximity of city-owned facilities was a big consideration during selection discussions.
“We at the school board are always interested in partnership ideas,” he said.
During a public meeting held in May at ADSS Auditorium, it was abundantly clear that hundreds of attendees would rather the new school be built on the current ADSS site.
Most participants in that forum were opposed to the district’s earlier favoured site – Sweeney Field.
When the school board went back to the planning table to look for a spot more palatable to the community, they continued to focus on land in the Echo area.
The Burde Street property, where the current high school sits, was offered to the province as revenue when the district submitted its original time-consuming business plan regarding a new school.
Wong said that it’s not certain the Ministry of Education would accept an alternate business plan that doesn’t include the sale of the ADSS property.
“They accepted that,” he said, adding that the district considered itself lucky on that count because property values in the Alberni Valley do not compare favorably with the rest of the province.
“To go for a lot of revisions on that business plan we might have been put back to the end of the queue,” said Wong, “and we were under some time pressure.”
Wong indicated that the possibility of losing approved government funding if the process takes too long is a concern.
When the business plan was submitted a few years ago, after ADSS showed badly in a facilities audit, districts were required to come up with 50 per cent of funds for new schools.
“We could not possibly come up with that,” Wong said.
By offering up proceeds from the sale of district-owned land at ADSS and Mt. Klitsa junior secondary sites, the district satisfied that demand.
SD 70 Secretary-treasurer Jerry Linning told Westcoaster.ca Friday that the reasons for selecting an Echo-area site over the current ADSS site are more than just financial. They’re educational as well.
“We feel that the site we’ve chosen closer to the recreation facilities will certainly enhance educational opportunities,” Linning said.
The province has mandated that a greater emphasis be put on physical education and promotion of active, healthy lifestyles. Planning to build a school in the midst of Port Alberni’s ball fields, swimming pool, ice arena and track facilities will help make the proposal attractive to the Ministry of Education.
Linning also said that there’s a much greater push now to have students take certain courses at North Island College. The college is also in the proposed new neighbourhood.
Solda said the province`s educational direction now has high schools and colleges working more closely together.
“They`re changing the system a little bit so the services are right there,” she said.
“There’s also safety concerns with building there (where the current school is),” Linning said.
Construction would be effected by having 1,000 children on the property, he indicated.
Linning conceded that while the original Sweeney Field proposal was presented to the community as being less expensive than a rebuild on the Burde Street land, the new Roger Street plan is more expensive.
“That was certainly one of the positives,” he said.
The Roger Street proposal will have the district handing over $622,500 to the city as well as Sweeney Field. Sweeney Field, while owned by the school district for 36 years, is a popular and well-used ball park. User groups assumed that it was city-owned for decades and were astonished and dismayed to learn they might lose it to a new high school.
If the Roger Street proposal is accepted, the city will put the $622,500 toward replacing the junior baseball fields taken up by the new school.
The school district will consolidate its lands in the Klitsa area with land already owned by the city to allow for the facility to be built.
District and city officials said Wednesday that ball player groups are happy with that option.
And the district will still make some money from the Klitsa land to satisfy the government by subdividing the small portion left over and selling it for single family residential use.
Wong wouldn`t speculate on whether or not the government would have required the school district to sell Sweeney and Klitsa entirely had they submitted a proposal to build at Burde Street.
“Ě can`t speak for the ministry on that,” he said.
Karen.boden@westcoaster.ca
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