Gananoque, TLTI reach arena agreement

GANANOQUE – The recreation cost sharing agreement between the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands and Gananoque for the Lou Jeffries Arena, remains in place.

During Tuesday’s council meeting at Town Hall, Gananoque unanimously authorized the mayor and clerk to sign a four-year agreement with TLTI.

The wording of the draft agreement is like the previous ones. The agreement guarantees the town funding from TLTI for four years. The town carries all financial risk and no further funding requests will be made of the township above the contribution amount.

The current recreation cost-sharing one-year agreement with TLTI expires on Dec. 31, 2024.

Town staff, TLTI staff and both mayors have been meeting throughout 2024 to facilitate a four-year agreement.

A public information session was held at the Lou Jeffries arena on Feb. 28 and residents of both the town and the township attended to represent their various user groups.

Subsequently, a survey was released in March which reached 742 respondents. Of the respondents, 55 per cent reside in Gananoque, 38 per cent reside in the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands, and the remaining are from Kingston, Brockville, Front of Yonge, Frontenac Township, Augusta Township and Belleville.

Most of the questions were information-gathering, but one question read: “Do you think the Lou Jeffries arena is an important part of our community?”

According to staff’s report, 96.7 per cent of respondents said “yes."

On Monday, June 3, at the TLTI committee of the whole meeting, a staff report was presented for consideration with respect to continuing the recreation cost-sharing agreement between TLTI and the town for the Lou Jeffries Arena for 2025 through 2028. Council deferred this motion.

At their Nov. 4, 2024 committee of the whole meeting, the members again discussed and then deferred the vote on this issue

At their Nov. 12, council meeting, the members authorized TLTI staff to enter into a four-year annual cost sharing agreement with the 2025 contribution set as $161,050 with a CPI increase for each of the three subsequent years.

Throughout the discussions, TLTI has emphasized that they do not wish any of their contributions to be applied toward recapitalization of the arena. As their contribution is less than half of the annual cost of the facility, this is easy to demonstrate.

Town of Gananoque staff agreed to this compromise and recommended that council agree to these terms. The alternative to this offer would be charging each out-of-town user a surcharge, which would be administratively cumbersome.

Keith Dempsey is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Brockville Recorder and Times. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.