Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 30/99) - The City of Yellowknife is sitting on a $4.2-million Major Community Facilities Reserve Fund. City councillor Cheryl Best says some of that money could have been used to avert the tax hike.

She speculates they didn't use the fund and raised taxes instead because there is still a commitment at city hall to build a first-class twin-pad arena.

"We know we need a new arena, and if we went to the ratepayers and asked to borrow enough money for a single arena, I think they would say yes," Best said.

"But we know the ratepayers would not and have not said yes to building the twin-pad arena."

This is significant, she says, because if the city has enough money in the bank to pay cash for a facility, they can build it without asking ratepayers. Only when they have to borrow money do they need permission.

"The fact is, we've got $4 million in the bank and if it's the will of council to use block funding to build a twin-pad arena, we could start construction this spring," Best said.

"Of course, a twin-pad arena costs $9 million, so to finish the project, we'd have to transfer more block funding into the reserve fund in the next couple of budgets."

The city receives a little over $5 million each year in block funding from the GNWT. It can only be used for capital projects.

In 1999, Best said $1.2 million from block funding went directly into the Major Community Facilities Fund. Typically, $500,000 was being budgeted into the fund each year.

"We can spend the money in the fund on any capital project we like, whether it's to pave back alleys or building a conference centre," Best said.

"What gets me is we put an extra $700,000 from our GNWT block funding to pad our major facilities fund. Then, when we came up short in our operating budget, we told ratepayers to cough up the money instead of taking it out of our savings account."

Best raised many of her concerns at a special council meeting last Monday. Ratepayer Jim Philip was at the meeting and felt Best was right on the money.

"I think any councillor or administrator who thinks that ice-skating activities are more important than keeping taxes at the status-quo is crazy," Philip said.

"It seems any suggestion to use the arena savings creatively is scorned upon. It makes me feel like I should feel guilty for not subsidizing hockey, and that's not fair."