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Past free skating for Sicamous elementary school students provided in error

Parkview parent advisory council secured $7,000 so it could offer skating at no charge
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Parkview Elementary School students will be able to skate for free thanks to grant-in-aid funding. (File photo)

Parkview Elementary School’s parent advisory council is getting money to fund skating time for students.

At its Feb. 17 meeting, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District’s (CSRD) board reviewed various grant-in-aid requests from across the regional district’s electoral areas. One was to for $7,000 for Parkview’s parent advisory council (PAC) so it could provide free ice time for Parkview students.

Electoral Area E director Rhona Martin said the Parkview PAC president reached out to her and let her know there was an issue with skating this year, as past operators of the Sicamous and District Recreation Centre didn’t charge for student skating.

Nustadia Recreation currently manages the recreation centre; the Sicamous and District Recreation Centre Society was the previous manager.

CSRD staff said the fact there was no charge for student skating in the past was an error and against the rules of the regional district’s fees and charges bylaw.

Martin said she and the PAC president felt it was important there’s no charge for the students to skate, so all who want to are able to participate. That’s why they asked for grant-in-aid funding.

The skating grant-in-aid request was passed, along with all other requests, with only Sicamous Mayor Terry Rysz in opposition.

Rysz noted he was only opposed to the skating grant-in-aid being approved; he had no issue with the other requests.

The mayor thought it wasn’t right to charge for the skating as it hadn’t cost anything in the past. As an alternative, he suggested having arena sponsors that pay for board and ice advertisement space at the rec centre be able to choose if the money they spend goes towards funding skating for Parkview students.

Rysz also had other concerns regarding how much Nustadia receives from Sicamous taxpayers.

CSRD board chair Kevin Flynn said he wasn’t questioning the mayor’s concerns, but that it wasn’t the time to discuss the CSRD’s contract with Nustadia.

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