During the December 14 meeting, council approved the recommendations to split up the $18.5 million from the Multi-Purpose Sports Complex reserve and reallocate $11.2 million of it to the Disaster Mitigation Reserve, $2.6 million to the Chatham Public Works Garage commitment and $4.6 million to the Backbone Fibre commitment.
Now that Chatham-Kent likely isn't getting a new arena complex, the money set aside for it could be going elsewhere.
A staff report going to council on Monday night recommends that the $18.5 million from the Multi-Purpose Sports Complex reserve be allocated to a trio of separate reserves.
In December 2019 council approved the transfer of $18.5 million from several existing municipal reserves into the Multi-purpose Sports Complex Reserve to go towards the proposed arena project. Around the same time, the municipality submitted an application to upper levels of government requesting $36.65 million through the Community, Culture and Recreation Funding stream to go towards a 2,200 seat, $60 million arena. The project was only to move forward if government funding was secured, as per council’s request.
However, in August 2020, it was announced that upper levels of government decided to pass on the municipality’s application for funding
Staff is now recommending that $11.2 million from the go towards the Sports Complex Reserve go to the Disaster Mitigation Reserve, $2.6 million go to the Chatham Public Works Garage commitment and $4.6 million to the Backbone Fibre commitment.
According to the report, council committed to the three major projects without allocating funding at the time of approval.
$24 million of Chatham-Kent funds are required over 2020-2029 for the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund program to obtain $16 million of federal funding. The program supports large-scale infrastructure projects to help communities better manage the risks of disasters triggered by natural hazards.
"Transferring the $11 million to the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund reserve will allow the planning of capital projects to proceed as planned," read the report. "The Public Works Garage and Backbone Fibre commitment will be distributed over the next 12 months."
If upper-level funding is committed for an arena complex in the future, staff recommends that Chatham-Kent can revisit reserves and/or issue debentures for its commitment.
