Contention between the Athabasca library board and the Athabasca Regional Multiplex Society (ARMS) after a rent increase brought members of the library board before town council for direction at their budget meeting March 20. Paula Evans, Alice B.
Contention between the Athabasca library board and the Athabasca Regional Multiplex Society (ARMS) after a rent increase brought members of the library board before town council for direction at their budget meeting March 20.
Paula Evans, Alice B. Donahue Library board chair, told the Town of Athabasca's council that the library is dealing with a “moving target” on how ARMS sets the library's monthly rent costs.
Evans said that last year the library paid on average $985 per month, until after the library asked for their bill to be evaluated, the Multiplex remembered to institute a raise “they announced a long time ago,” and the library started paying $1,107. That was without GST, so the figure became $1,164.
Evans said this increase was after the board had submitted its 2017 budget to council, and then the Multiplex general manager, Dustin Pysyk, came back and increased the amount again by nearly $900 per month.
“Which is almost double, with no warning, after we had submitted out budget,” she said.
“So I guess what we're asking is guidance from the town – can you meet the $9,400 shortfall the Multiplex is asking for?” Evans said.
Evans also told council that Athabasca County has conveyed through Coun. Warren Griffin, who also sits on the library board, that the county is unwilling to subsidize the library any further.
Town of Athabasca Mayor Roger Morrill said it seems forthright to him that the library board negotiate directly with ARMS.
“I personally would like to see a letter of contention sent back to the Multiplex and begin a negotiation process with them,” he said.
Coun. Tanu Evans said he does not believe it should be the library board's responsibility to negotiate.
“The library board is responsible for the general management of the library,” he said. “I actually think it's council's job to negotiate with the Multiplex on behalf of the library board, not the library board itself.”
Morrill said that is one way to look at it, but he would like to see the library board come back to council with a best-case scenario.
Paula Evans said that if council wants her as chair of the library board to “go fight with the Multiplex, I guess that's what I have to do.”
She also said it makes her uncomfortable stepping into this when Griffin used the word “war” during a library board meeting.
Coun. Timothy Verhaeghe said this rent increase “shouldn't be retroactive, or even current,” and invited library board members to attend the next ARMS meeting in April to express their concerns.
“It's not fair in my opinion for the library to take a hit such as this at this time in the year,” he said.
Coun. Steve Schafer brought up a “prospective that is assumed to be dead,” and asked that in consideration of the operations and cost of the library if the board revisit looking at the new school as a library location.
“It strikes me perhaps that at this time … how much longer is there an independent insistent of the library for its space?” he said.
Paula Evans responded the library wants to be where they are, and can provide Coun. Schafer with “lots of information” on the problems with public school based libraries.
Coun. Tanu Evans also noted that both the current and previous town council made motions to keep the library downtown.
“As far as I'm concerned, the moving of the library is not subject to discussion any longer. It's finalized,” he said.
Schafer responded that when thinking about the future of the region, “I would not accept that explanation, that any decision is ‘final.'”
