The council decided to push back against a wholesale increase for recreation users proposed by staff at its December 7th regular meeting. The proposed fee increases, initiated by Director of Environmental Services Danielle Watson, suggested ice rental rate increases between 15 and 26 per cent at the Morrisburg Arena, and new fees charged for the first time for using municpal baseball diamonds.
Watson said that staff had compared rates charged by South Dundas against other area municipalities. South Dundas has had the lowest ice rental costs of any municipality in SDG Counties, and does not charge for baseball diamond rental. He explained that while it would be good to put money aside for looking after the arena, a lot of money had already been spent on it in recent years.
South Dundas-based youth baseball programs will not see any fees for using a municipal diamond. The burden of paying for municipal facilities will go to adult recreation and junior hockey instead.
Each school will continue to receive two hours of ice time for free each season. This includes recreation leagues such as Blooperball. Council was supportive of keeping fee increases limited to adult recreation and out-of-area users. Municipally-run programming like Yoga, Bootcamp, and adult Taekwondo will increase by 10 per cent, down from the 15 per cent increase proposed by Watson.
Youth Taekwondo and swimming lessons will not increase, in line with council supporting youth programs in South Dundas. Williamsburg Pioneers baseball president David Lapier said he was happy to learn that the municipality is not going to charge youth teams to use the baseball diamonds. While youth sports and recreation programs were happy with no increases, the same cannot be said for local Junior C hockey club, the Morrisburg Lions.
