About 50 people packed the Shawville RA hall on the evening of Sept. 18 for a public information session hosted by the municipality to discuss the future of the Shawville arena. 

The municipality called the meeting to share the contents of a report it received earlier this summer that detailed $17 million in repairs recommended to repair its floor, keep the ice plant alive and bring the arena up to minimum fire and building code requirements.

The hall was packed with arena users, representatives from various municipalities and community groups, and interested citizens, many of whom had questions for the council about their plans for the future of the arena. 

Shawville councillor and arena committee chair Julien Gagnon shared the study’s findings, saying that a growing deficit and the study’s long list of recommended fixes make the next few years a critical decision point for the future of the arena. 

Councillor Richard Armitage explained the arena’s deficit has grown in recent years because of increasing expenses related to the ice plant. Last year, the town spent $47,000 on ice plant repairs from refrigeration company Cimco, increased hydro costs as well $10,000 spent on the zamboni this spring to get it through the rest of the season. Also, the municipality’s rent contribution to the Pontiac Agricultural Society (PAS) rose from $2,100 to $25,000 this year, also contributing to the deficit.  

“The municipality believes we are at a major junction point in the history of the Shawville arena,” Gagnon said, adding that the municipality has not made any decisions and wants to hear from the community first on which route it wants to see the arena take. 

Gagnon encouraged attendees to fill out a survey with their residence information, level of involvement with the arena, and which fixes residents want to see prioritized. In his presentation he suggested three main paths forward: address repairs as they come up, make the more expensive repairs listed in the study, or find a way to build a new arena altogether. 

“Month to month we don’t know if the arena will be operating. That’s where we’re at, it’s that scary, and that’s what we’re concerned about.”  

Public chimes in 

Several members of the public stepped forward to ask questions about the arena’s finances, share suggestions for possible strategies to move forward, as well as their feelings about the critical role the arena plays in the community. 

Arena user Greg Hayes suggested the municipality could help tackle some of the deficit by raising the rate for men’s leagues in addition to youth users. 

Gagnon said the municipality is open to this, and while it has sometimes been hard to track down players to pay their fee, he said he is in talks with men’s leagues to provide a photocopy of their driver’s licence as a proof of address.

“We’re putting the onus on those leagues, but considering that we doubled the cost of a user fee last year, we have to consider that we didn’t increase accordingly the men’s league’s rentals,” said Gagnon. 

Hayes, whose kids also used the arena for minor hockey, said when it comes to the arena’s future the community cannot afford a disruption of services. 

“Therefore there is no chance that a major renovation can happen. There’s no alternative but to keep using it, but the only way that we can keep using it is to repair it properly while we figure out the plan,” he said. 

Meagan Derouin, vice-president of the Pontiac Arena Fund, weighed in on the question of how to get support from other municipalities who use the arena. 

She said while Shawville is asking other municipalities to contribute to attack its deficit, other municipalities also have financial challenges of their own and may not be able to afford to contribute. 

“We can’t expect that each municipality is going to pay,” she said.

After a slight confusion over how the municipality came to the $177,000 deficit number, Derouin asked Gagnon if there could be a way where municipalities’ arena users could share a relatively equal tax burden, instead of Shawville taxpayers paying it all. 

“Are you suggesting that potentially that if we are doing a [25 per cent split] for the four municipalities that use it the most, then it would be approximately $50 each on each person’s taxes instead of $215 for Shawville?” 

Gagnon said yes, however it is not that simple because Shawville has been the only municipality to manage the arena throughout its 60-plus-year history, making it hard to get other municipalities to chip in. 

“The main issue is when you have a municipality paying zero dollars and you are asking for money for a service that we are already offering, and we are saying ‘pretty please, would you send us $50 per tax bill,’
[ . . . ] It’s easy to say no.”  

PAS president Ralph Lang said he’s found it difficult to get financial statements out of the municipality, suggesting that it will be hard to find a partner to run the facility. 

“We’ve had trouble getting financial statements out of council about what the cost is to run the arena. We’ve heard about deficits for the past three or four years, they’re real hard to get. It’s hard to get a partner unless you’re transparent and honest,” he said.

“When we get numbers, we will make sure the public gets them,” said Gagnon later in the meeting. “Other than increasing taxes, we’re kind of strapped on some of the budget. We’re spending more than the average municipality in terms of recreation, and unfortunately it’s going mostly to the arena.” 

Shawville looking for partners 

Currently, Shawville alone manages the operations of the arena as a tenant of the PAS, but it is looking for both financial and operational support from other municipalities. 

 Council said it would be open to building a new arena if it could find partners to own and operate the facility.  This could either be neighbouring municipalities or community organizations such as the PAS, the RA or the Pontiac Arena Fund. 

Gagnon said the municipality has done some basic calculations about what it would cost to build a new arena, and how much each partner would have to pay. While a preliminary estimate received by the municipality for a new arena amounted to around $30 million, there is no official plan yet and therefore no accurate estimate.

“Assuming our net contribution is a third of $30 million and we can get $20 million in grant money, we would have to look for at least four partners [ . . . ] which gives us about $2.5 million. We could finance that over 10 or 20 years, and we’re looking at maybe $100,000 to $200,000 a year,” he said. 

While the municipalities of Clarendon and Thorne have contributed financially, and discussions are being had with other municipalities including the Municipality of Pontiac, Gagnon said again it has been difficult to get more of a commitment.

“Anytime we’ve discussed that with other municipalities, they’ve been willing to sign the cheque, but not manage the operation because it’s a big headache.” 

Gagnon said some sort of shared recreation budget between some major users of the arena could be a possible solution toward an equitable sharing of arena costs.  

“Personally, I will 100 per cent pay for part of the [Bristol] pier because I know residents of the Municipality of Shawville love to go swimming [ . . . ] If there’s any major projects I think we should all chip in together.” 

Councillor and finance committee chair Richard Armitage said he has been asking for help since 2022, and is hoping someone will step up to the plate. 

“All I want right now is a reliable arena. We can’t let those programs go to pieces,” he said of the minor hockey and figure skating programs. 

Gagnon said while a new arena is likely at least five years away, the municipality wanted to collect this information from the public before the election nomination period ends so it can hit the ground running when the next council is sworn in, in November.  

“We just want to make sure we know you’re open to anything, that way going forward we know who’s into one aspect or nothing at all, that way we can come back to you with prices for all that stuff,” he said. 

He added that the council will consider the results of the survey and use them to help orient the direction the next council will take. Shawville council will cease being able to act as a council after the Oct. 2 council meeting.