Lacombe County Declines $ for Winter Games and STARS

Following a number of recent funding requests, Lacombe County Council made some decisions yesterday (Mar 22^nd).

On the heels of the City of Lacombe opting not to pledge any financial sponsorship to next year's Canada Winter Games in Red Deer, County Council followed suit.

Reeve Paula Law says there were a couple of good reasons for that.

“In 2015 we put 1 million dollars towards the G.W. Harris multi-plex and also towards the vision for degree granting status for the Red Deer College.  We know that this building is going to be one of the major venues for the games so we feel the County has already made a significant contribution to the games”.

She adds they have received numerous funding requests over the years for sporting activities.

“We have consistently declined to support those as we’re also concerned again with the number of requests that would follow should you decide to contribute to a sporting event”.

Both the City and County of Lacombe committed to support the games through social media channels and publications.

Red Deer County has committed $500,000 in support of the games while the Town of Ponoka and Ponoka Stampede are sharing a $50,000 sponsorship.

STARS Air Ambulance also appeared recently before County Council asking for $2 per capita on a four year pledge or annual budget basis.

 When based on the current county population it would have worked out to over $20,000.

Law says in 2012 and again in 2016 Council denied similar requests from STARS and the outcome was the same yesterday.

“STARS is a charitable organization and it’s a very great charitable organization but there’s lot of other very good charities and Council was concerned that if we used ratepayers dollars to donate to one charitable organization how do you pick and choose and determine other charitable organizations you would contribute to?”

County Council did however vote in support of up to $65,000 in funding to the Clive Athletic and Agricultural Society for their arena ice plant repair project, they also approved the reallocation of just over $23,000 to the City of Lacombe to complete some further improvements at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex.