STEPHEN RICCIO
QUYON Sept. 8, 2020
The Quyon Family Centre will be expanding their facility space thanks to an agreement with the Municipality of Pontiac (MoP), with free access to the Quyon Community Centre to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions that have hurt the centre’s revenue.
The municipality announced that it had come to a five-year agreement with the family centre at their Sept. 8 council meeting, granting use of . . .
the facility to the Pontiac Community gym, which is run by the family centre.
Mayor Joanne Labadie said to THE EQUITY after the meeting that the agreement is a huge benefit for one of the municipality’s community outlets.
“In our COVID era, municipalities across Canada and around the world have to re-envision how their community [facilities] are going to be used under these pandemic restrictions,” Labadie said. “Of course, our community gym is one of them, that in order to meet the needs of the people to go out and do their workouts, etc., there just wasn’t enough space in their existing facility.”
Quyon Family Centre Director General Silviana Geoffray told THE EQUITY that the move to the new facility is scheduled for Oct. 1, although it could take place as late as Oct. 31.
She said that gym equipment will occupy the space in the back of the building while the main hall will be used for group fitness classes and indoor sports.
“The credit for this project goes back to 2015, the director general at the time, Richard Vaillancourt, and the council back then had the foresight to proceed with an intervention plan requested by the province, to determine the state of our water and sewer lines,” he said. “The engineering study determined that the lines were in need of replacement. They had been in use for over 58 years, so well overdue to be replaced. Credit also goes to our present director general, Alicia Jones, and our present council for continuing to pursue the infrastructure grants.”
Sunstrum added that the work would likely start in 2021 and continue for several years. He emphasized that around 75 per cent of the municipal share would come from the roughly 130 households that have water and sewer connections in the village.
