The Haley Station rink, which is on township property, is scheduled to be torn down by the public works department.
Reeve Terry Millar questioned during last week’s council meeting if there was any feedback from the fire department about using it as training and razing it.
There was hope if it could be burned it wouldn’t have to go into the landfill.
Chief Wayne Heubner said by burning it the environment would be affected.
“We can do it if you want us to,” he said. “But putting things like that into the clouds is not a good thing.”
Reeve Millar noted it was an issue during the municipal election.
“I’d like to see it cleaned up,” he said.
Councillor Daryl McLaughlin said the previous council was approached by the Black Metis Association to use it as a meeting room, but that never happened.
“I agree with what’s going on,” he said. “It’s not like the past council just sloughed it off. It was passed (it could be used for meetings) and they agreed to bring it up to standards so they could have a meeting room. But, that didn’t happen.
“I think it’s time to remove it and not wait until something serious happens.”
Public works manager Bill Misener said in the best interest of the municipality, “It should be torn down and taken to the dump.”
It can be ground up and used as cover, he said.
“With the environmental laws these days, I’d be afraid,” Mr. Misener said. “It’s just a lot easier, for the little bit it’s going to take us to clean it up, with the excavator and a couple of trucks, I think we’d be safer that way.”
Councillor Chris Olmstead wanted assurances that no one in Haley Station is upset this building is going to be demolished.
“The last thing I want to do is go ahead and demolish it and then someone to contact us and say they called us a month ago,” he said.
Mayor Hal Johnson noted the building inspector said it’s “extremely unsafe.”
Coun. McLaughlin said many years ago the treasurer of the Haley Rec Association asked the township to disconnect the power as they had no use for the facility.
It was agreed to demolish the building and arena and move the debris to the landfill site.
After the meeting, Don Rathwell, who was a municipal politician with the former Ross Township, said the rink was built somewhere near the early to mid-1970s.
It was an active rink with winter carnivals, hockey and broomball.
On some Saturday nights, it would be filled with people playing cards, he said.
“Forty people could sit in there comfortably,” he recalled.
It was the community who raised the funds and construct the facility and who took care of it.
In 2008, the former council entered into an agreement with the Black Metis Association to use it as a meeting place, Mr. Rathwell said.
“I think they only used it a couple of times,” he recalled. “They didn’t get as many people attending the meetings as they thought they would.”
The community will never be organized enough to revive the facility, Mr. Rathwell said.
“It should be torn down, it’s a hazard,” he said.
