11.3. SR 03-05-2018 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Arena Issue Notes Comments are not meant to offend or demean any of the work done by previous task forces and' 1 committees. I have been getting emails saying what a poor leader I am on this issue. I can only surmise that those writing those emails think I should vote to spend $25 million on an ice arena with no citizen input. This issue has been on my mind, day and night, since our vote on February 8. I have called numerous cities and exchanged email with others about their ice arenas. People are asking for me to do something and I have been conducting research and giving the issue plenty of thought. I have heard from several senior citizens and businesses about the impact a $25 million dollar levy would have on their taxes. Their voices have to be taken into account. In my mind we may have been approaching this issue in the wrong way. We know that we have issues with the ice arena, the senior activity center and Lions Park Center. Instead of combining these I think we need to prioritize them. The arena needs to be dealt with first because of sensitive nature of the ice rink system. The arena is an important amenity in Elk River and I think we all agree that something needs to be done to improve the current situation. We are exploring activity center options with the Y. Before that decision is made we should have a firm number on what it would take to make repairs to the current activity center without adding more space to the building. I am sure we will have further discussions about Lions Park Center. In the failed 2016 referendum we added pieces to the arena improvement to try to recruit more broad support. We came very close to succeeding. The project just put on hold was for $25 million. I think there are a lot of people in Elk River who only see the dollar amount when voting on a referendum. I understand that. As we add more pieces to make a referendum attractive, the price keeps going up. This probably works to our disadvantage. People get blown away by a number. My research of arenas in other communities and how they are paid for show that we should be able to construct/remodel two sheet facility in Elk River for much less than the dollars currently being tossed around. An example of this is in Sioux Falls. They built a three sheet facility for a construction cost of $9.3 million. I called to see how that was possible. Some things that kept the cost down: sand floors instead of concrete, metal building instead of tip up concrete panels, one floor facility. The building is owned by a 501 c3 corporation in Sioux Falls and the city put very little money into the project. They did many other things to keep the cost down. The leader of their 501 c3 group told me they have a very functional facility, one without all the bells and whistles that drive up the cost. He was shocked when I told him we were looking at one new rink and one remodeled for $20-$25 million. The groups on both ends of the arena issue—those that want nothing done and those that want a complete overhaul of the building, probably will not like my plan. In most compromises neither side gets what it wants. I consider this a compromise.