By Adam Ophus

$375K grant

Town council, RASA meet to discuss North Saskatchewan River Park lease

Jun 3, 2020 | 5:14 PM

This Thursday would mark the start of the 48^th Rocky Pro Rodeo at the North Saskatchewan River Park if not for COVID-19.

The nonprofit Rocky Agricultural and Stampede Association (RASA) has a lease agreement on the park which the Town of Rocky Mountain House will be terminating as of July 14, 2020.

While RASA still held the lease, they applied for a $375,000 Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP) grant.

They stated in a letter on May 21, that they would be forced to give back the money, claiming the Town told them to, along with other accusations, so the Town held a special council meeting with RASA on Tuesday.

Before beginning the meeting, council wished to clarify what they deemed as incorrect information in the letter.

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Chief Administration Officer (CAO) Dean Krause went through 11 different topics covered in the letter, such as the “turnover of assets with no benefit to RASA.”

The Lease Agreement signed by both parties in 2016 does state, “All Improvements made by the Lessee or made by the Lessor on the Lessee’s behalf shall become the property of the Lessor upon the expiry of the term of this lease, without compensation therefore to the Lessee,” the expiry being October 2020.

RASA representative Terry Williams said that they felt that the clarifications were irrelevant for that meeting, but were more interested in what was to be done about the $375,000 in grant money that was on the line.

“We want to be able to turn over the grant money to the town so we can move forward, that being said, the conditions of the grant need to be met and we just want to know if the town is willing to meet those conditions,” explained Williams.

Their main concern was that their nonprofit organization would be responsible to pay back the money if conditions were not met, as it was RASA that applied for the CFEP grant.

RASA wants a lease agreement for the park that would allow them to meet conditions of the grant so they could give the money to the Town.

The Town claimed that they brought a lease agreement to RASA and that it was them that refused it.

“We had to refuse it, because the Ministry told us that it doesn’t meet the conditions,” responded RASA.

The nonprofit group stated during the meeting that they were willing to have the Town fully control the bookings for the grounds, which was one of the largest points of contention with other user groups.

Mayor Tammy Burke was determined that before the end of the meeting both sides could come together with an agreement that would work before they went to the Ministry.

However, both the Town and RASA had already sent the lease agreement to the Ministry and were now waiting for clarification whether it would work.

Both parties agreed to wait until a clarification was received and they would make whatever changes were required to the agreement once they knew what would be needed.