Reeve Sawchuk says rec park study will result in M.D. reviewing priorities

Reeve Greg Sawchuk said the M.D. of Bonnyville’s recreation park feasibility study revealed that the municipality could be taking a step back from the lofty outdoor complex and reviewing their priorities.

On The Morning After, Sawchuk repeated the council’s decision to work with the Town of Bonnyville moving forward on the subject.

“It was a pretty big in scope as far as the feasibility goes on it, it encompassed a lot of things. I think what we came back with on that was the cost was pretty high and that maybe we need to take a step back and look at the priorities of the community and let’s work with our neighbour on this one.

“There were some changes from when this originally proposed because we’ve had a couple more ball diamonds built recently. We’re doing our improvements to campgrounds, boat launches, things like that, the trails, those things are being worked on as well,” he said.

The rec park if phased in, would cost over $24 million and include two baseball diamonds and two softball/slo-pitch diamonds, four rectangular fields, eight pickleball courts, a Destination playground, a family day-use picnic area, a loop trail and non-serviced camping in the first installment.

“We’re hitting on a lot of the items through our recreation study people wanted. That was that outdoor stuff in regards to trials and boat launches. As far as the fields, they were quite a ways down the list, but the town is working on something there as well. I think what we need to do is sit with the town and see if we can hit a medium spot in between,” said Sawchuk.

“Obviously there’s other priorities that out there that may go above this. A pool. It comes up often. It was the number one item on the recreation survey for the Bonnyville area. I would expect that one to come up in the near future.”

Sawchuk added that another concern will be matching the price to amount the park would be used. By building an outdoor park, it could be a major facility used only four months of the year, he said.