Now that a new lease and operating agreement for the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre (SLSFSC) has been reached the town can complete long-term lease arrangements for tenants in the centre's expansion.

Finalizing these leases have been delayed, explains Cochrane Mayor Ivan Brooker, and council is glad the two years of negotiation have concluded.

"It's been a long time in the making and there's been a lot of back and forth," says Brooker. "The county had some concerns of the ongoing operation. It was pretty frustrating, quite honestly, to get to this point but at the end of the day I'm happy to get an agreement and everyone's able to move on from that one."

There was unanimous agreement and little discussion among Rocky Viw County (RVC) councillors at their June 13 meeting when they sealed the new deal that was struck because of the $48 million expansion of the SLSFSC. The original centre is jointly owned by the town and RVC, but the expansion is the sole responsibility of the town. Both will be operated by the Spray Lakes Sawmills Recreation Park Society.

The new agreement comes into effect June 25 and it is a more detailed and lengthy document that largely expands upon territory concisely covered in the original three-page lease signed on Nov. 13, 2001.

"Councillors didn't have any issues," says Brooker. "It was more about appeasing the county and including what they wanted to see in the agreement."

Yet the time involved in finalizing the agreement came dangerously close to the ribbon-cutting ceremony originally scheduled for June 25 and county administration pointed out the execution of the agreement was time sensitive in its preamble to the agenda item.

The county sees the new agreement, which also includes the Cochrane Arena, as an opportunity to expand upon their definition of accountability requirementa and to become more active in recreation service planning to meet the public expectations for quality improvement and cost effectiveness in services. They also want to ensure their residents continue to have meaningful access to the facility at the same rates charged to Cochrane residents.

RVC division 9 councillor Bruce Kendall, who made the motion to accept the agreement, says his advocacy for a pool has always hinged upon having a strong agreement in place for all three parties involved and believes that has been achieved.

"It's a fair agreement," says Kendall. "The facility prior to the pool always ran in the black and the worry was we didn't want the pool to become a burden on the society and that the partners accepted their roles and responsibilities."

He calls the cooperation between the town and the county at this recreation facility as a model to base future agreements upon with other urban centres the county relies upon to offer services to their residents.

"In Cochrane's case, it's largely a model for Rocky View as to this is working really well. We have a volunteer board that runs it and does a very good job. The pool is the very first time we stepped out of the model and we just want to be certain if there are any fiscal impacts that there's a clear understanding of how they will be dealt with in the future."

He believes the idea is to have other components of the centre bring in enough money to offset the operating costs of the pool.

"They've done a great job and it will pretty exciting when they cut the ribbon."

In the meantime, the town remains in limbo as to whether RVC will further contribute to the development costs of the expansion. RVC provided $2.2 million for the expansion project and a decision has not been reached on the town's original request for $6.25 million. In the executive summary of the agreement report, the county states the request is expected to be reviewed when the RVC master recreation plan is completed and they have a better understanding of the demand for aquatic services by county residents.