Westlock County residents now know the question they’ll be asked Oct. 16 concerning the fate of the Tawatinaw Valley Ski Hill.
The question, which council approved by a 4-3 vote at its May 9 meeting, is: “Knowing the operating cost impact of the Tawatinaw Valley Ski Hill on the annual operating budget, are you in favour of selling the Tawatinaw Ski Hill Facility regardless of whether it remains a hill or is used for different purposes?”
“The question needs to be very simple and definitive,” said Coun. Dennis Primeau, who made the motion to select the wording.
“You don’t put a lot of encumbrances into it. The marketplace will tell you the most profitable thing to do. Keep it or sell it and whoever buys it can do whatever they like with it.”
While Primeau, along with reeve Don Savage, deputy reeve Ray Marquette and Coun. Mel Kroetsch voted for the wording, Councillors Albert St. Louis, Bud Massey and Ron Zadunayski were against it.
“Sold or not, I don’t think is enough. (Multiple questions) give much more options for residents to voice their opinion,” said Massey, who made the initial motion to petition residents for their opinion on the hill.
The county is not bound by the decision of the plebiscite, which will be on the ballot of the Oct. 16 Municipal Election.
The plebiscite, in part, stems from the operator’s agreement that was signed between Westlock County and DK Consulting earlier this year for management of the facility.
In that agreement, the municipality will pay DK Consulting $120,000 to operate and maintain the facility until Sept. 30, 2018, in addition to completing $90,000 worth of facility improvements including fixing the parking lot and replacing a number of the generators.
The Tawatinaw Ski Hill has been in operation since 1967. A volunteer group operated the facility until 2006 but handed the keys back to the county in response to ongoing maintenance issues.
Construction of the new ski chalet began in 2013 and cost over $2 million. Following its completion, the chalet was closed to the public during the 2014-15 ski season after water began to seep into the basement. Raising the facility above the floodplain cost an additional $500,000.
The county attempted to sell the property in 2015, but instead signed a two-year, $2.2 million lease/purchase agreement with DK Consulting.
However, the agreement was suspended in June of 2016 after DK Consulting was found to be in arrears to taxes owed on the property. In December 2016 the county agreed to reinstate DK Consulting’s payments and renegotiate the contract.
DK Consulting owner Dom Kringkum said he had only recently become aware of the plebiscite, having read about it in the Westlock News.
“We’ll see what’s going to happen after the plebiscite,” he said.
