Summerside adopts recommendations to manage groups using recreational facilities

After months of work, the City of Summerside, P.E.I.,has approved a set of 18 recommendationsto manage user fees and discounts for groups using community facilitieslike sports fields.

At a meeting held on Monday, Coun.Brian McFeelypresented an updated report of recommendations that was originally presented to council in January.

The updated recommendations include working withturf field users to determine contributions each group will paytoward aturf field improvementfund.

It's really around trying to be fair, trying to have a framework there. Brian McFeely

The policy also recommendsestablishing a new series of user categoriesto help staff managefee-waiver requests, which includes community service groups, non-sport recreation groups and private sector groups.

Other new recommendations include restricting the acceptance of late applications for funding as well as establishing rules for groups outside the City of Summersidethatapplyfor community support funding.

"It's really around trying to be fair, trying to have a framework there so everyone knows what the playing rules are," McFeely said.

"That when a group comes and wants to use any of the facilities, there are some guidelines for staff there to apply whatever the fee should be."

Groups outside of Summerside

The policy nowincludes a recommendation that allows groups from outside of Summersideto apply for community support funding, as long as the organization provides programming within the City of Summerside.

"Council recognized that there was significant value for some of those applications for residents of the city," McFeely said. "If a group whose head office is in Charlottetown for instance that wanted to run a program in Summersidefor the benefit of Summersideresidents, then they would now be eligible for the community sport programs."

The policy recommends thatgroups representing an outdoor sports teamthat does not reside in Summersidewill have continued use of facilities, including the turf field, ball diamonds, beach volleyball courts, at no cost until the end of the current fiscal year inMarch 2019.

Multi-year agreements

The policy also recommends establishing multi-year funding agreements with four community organizations offering programs across the city.

The Boys and Girls Club of Summerside and Generation XX are two of the organizations being considered to move from an annual funding renewal process to more individualized multi-year arrangements.

We wanted to kind of findapoint here that was fair to users, fair to the city. Brian McFeely

Council also approved a resolution to transfer its annual funding agreements for the Harbourfront Theatre and the College of Piping tothree-year funding models.

McFeelysaid the new set of recommendations will give staff working at Summerside's recreational facilities a framework to follow when managing groups that use the various recreational services across the city.

"There's so many different kinds of users and there was no sort of blanket policy that you could apply that kind of worked for everybody," McFeelysaid. "We wanted to kind of find a point here that was fair to users, fair to the city."

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