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City of Red Deer Budget 2012 in Brief

River Bend Golf and Recreation Society is banking on better weather and more golfers to tee off when the recreation area celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. General manager Andrew Gilchrist told city council on Tuesday that the golf course will reduce its fees by 10 per cent for the regular season. Spring rates will be reduced a total of 25 per cent from opening day to May 21.

River Bend to reduce green fees

River Bend Golf and Recreation Society is banking on better weather and more golfers to tee off when the recreation area celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. General manager Andrew Gilchrist told city council on Tuesday that the golf course will reduce its fees by 10 per cent for the regular season. Spring rates will be reduced a total of 25 per cent from opening day to May 21.

Gilchrist said a sustainability plan will be developed to identify strategies that make the operation profitable once again.

The society is contracted by the City of Red Deer to operate the public golf course and recreation area, which includes Discovery Canyon seasonal water park. Like last year, it’s asking for a grant of $140,000 for nonpark amenities.

“That’s not a subsidy,” Gilchrist added. “It’s a contribution of the partnership between the city and the society. This is a 25-year-old park so the city and their partnership with us has accepted that they have some responsibility that those services continue to be available.”


Research for new library branch

Many of Red Deer Public Library’s users are from the southeast side of the city and director Dean Frey wants to see them get a branch closer to home.

The library has requested $25,000 in one-time funding to do market research for a small branch to be built as part of a new public school in the Timberlands subdivision and for a larger branch to be built later, possibly as an addition to the Collicutt Centre.

Frey said the Timberlands branch is expected to be open by September 2014. However, a larger library, along the lines of the recently renovated G. H. Dawe branch, is also on the wish list.

“The Dawe branch has been a huge success, meeting the needs of the citizens of north Red Deer,” he said, following a budget presentation to city council on Tuesday.


Museum to fundraise exhibit

The Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery will embark on a fundraising campaign at the end of January for its $1.5-million permanent historical exhibit.

Executive director Lorna Johnson said they hope to raise $500,000. The museum received $1 million from the city towards the exhibit that will open in March 2013. “Storage is still a huge (issue),” Johnson added. “Even after our renovations, we didn’t get any more square footage.”

The museum isn’t asking for any additional money from the city through the operational budget, Johnson added.

Attendance reached about 27,000 in 2011, compared with about 25,000 in 2010.

Johnson said the attendance is based on those who actually pay to go into the museum whereas in years previous to 2010, attendance was based on whoever walked in the door. School attendance is down.

“We’re working at developing a better response to our visitors, better ways of testing out the waters to see what people would like to see.”

Council was also told a primary source of funding, a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, has decreased from $110,000 in 2010 and $98,000 in 2011 to a proposed amount of just over $77,000 this year.


Waskasoo would like salary hikes

The operators of Kerry Wood Nature Centre and Fort Normandeau are hoping to receive an additional $63,000 to help bump up salaries for their employees.

The Waskasoo Environmental Education Society is looking for the extra to their fee-for-service agreement with the City of Red Deer to increase salaries so people are getting paid appropriately, as well as deal with other operating costs. City administration is recommending city council approve an increase of $20,000.

Society executive director Jim Robertson said on Tuesday the $20,000 would only support operating costs above the costs of inflation, so it would be used for things like electrical bills and increases to pensions and benefits.

Robertson said they’ve lost three core full-time staff in the last two years because they’ve found better paying jobs. That loss is great when the staff is small to begin with.

“We’ve had an interpreter, who is doing school programs or doing public tours, who makes about $16 an hour. This is pretty much the same as somebody at the Collicutt Centre who puts wristbands on people. And we’re looking for people with a university degree and training.”


Airport closer to schedule agreement

Northwestern Air Lease Ltd. is getting closer to ironing out Transport Canada requirements that must be met to begin scheduled air service from Red Deer to Kelowna.

Red Deer Airport CEO RJ Steenstra told city council during budget talks on Tuesday that one of two requirements has been resolved and progress has been made on the last issue.

Northwestern planned to offer direct flights between Red Deer and Kelowna, starting on Nov. 18, with service to and from the British Columbia city on Fridays and Sundays.

But the company announced shortly before the launch date that it had to postpone startup of the service until early this year, citing “operational requirements issued by Transport Canada.”

The city contributes $185,000 in operational funding to the airport each year. Red Deer County puts in a similar amount. The long-term plan is to wean the airport off that support.

Steenstra said the airport is working on making itself financially independent, but when that happens depends on growth through land lease, charter, and scheduled air service development.


Greater online tourism presence

The art of luring tourists is moving rapidly away from brochures and visitor information centres to online enticements, says Tourism Red Deer executive director Liz Taylor.

In a budget presentation to council, Taylor said old-style visitor information centres are becoming “dinosaurs.

“What we’d really like to do is get the information into the hands of consumers long before they are passing us at 120 km/h on the highway,” she elaborated later in an interview.

There have been early discussions about whether the Visitor Information Centre, which is currently next to the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum on Hwy 2, could be turned into storefont downtown.

Eventually, social media and online marketing will take over from brochures and printed material, she said, noting that a popular accomodation and camping guide is going to an online format next year.

“We have a new aggressive new website and we have an aggressive new social media program,” she said. Twitter and Facebook are increasingly used to get the word out on Red Deer.

The City of Red Deer will provide $232,000 — about one third of Tourism Red Deer’s budget — this year, up marginally from last year.


Welcome signs to be pulled down

The welcome signs to Red Deer on Hwy 2 at each end of the city could be headed for the scrap yard.

Tourism Red Deer executive director Liz Taylor said the aging signs were battered by a recent windstorm and are now held together with duct tape and wire. They are in such poor shape advertising can no longer be sold on them, Taylor told city council during budget talks on Tuesday.

It is hoped they can be pulled down this summer. Tourism Red Deer is talking to Alberta Transportation to see if it will take on the job.

“They’re dead,” she said, of the signs.

“Actually, they’re artifacts of the past,” quipped Mayor Morris Flewwelling.

There is no word on replacements yet.