The City of Lloydminster is in the process of updating its fieldhouse, arena and outdoor sport surface allocation policy, outlining priorities in how it allocates facility time.
The policy was first adopted on May 30, 2022 and aims to provide a fair, transparent and equitable allocation process for users booking through the city. The policy outlines the process for allocation, deadlines per season and facility for when allocations are reviewed and determined.
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A number of updates were proposed since its initial inception.
“Administration is proposing the following updates, changes to the policy, expanded scope to include outdoor sport surfaces; expanded and clarification on definitions, more structured and detailed allocation process,” said Joel Turcotte, director of recreation and cultural services, City of Lloydminster.
“We’re hoping that these changes may improve transparency, equity and consistency across facilities, which allows administration to make data-driven information.”
The policy’s allocation process outlines users must request their facility time based on what they used last year and what they expect to need for the upcoming season.
Administration’s process is also outlined. They will give groups the detailed dates for the upcoming season 30 days before the request deadlines. Administration will then review the requests and confirm the times each group gets within 45 days after the deadline.
The new policy includes revised and added definitions for better clarity, and the director of leisure services or delegate can change, approve or remove bookings as needed.
Usage trends will be monitored throughout the season to ensure ice is used to its full capacity.
Users will be allowed to return unneeded allocation for one season without a loss of priority. However, if this happens for two consecutive seasons, users will lose their allocation.
“This example has happened a couple of times,” said Turcotte. “What happens is, sporting groups sometimes fluctuate numbers; we want to give a little bit of wiggle room.
“If one year they didn’t need an hour of ice and the following years their numbers came back alive and they were able to use that ice again, we want to make sure we’re fair to other users. So, if they don’t have enough numbers to support that ice usage two years in a row, we’re going to remove it and provide it to someone permanently.”
As per the policy, winter season schedule priority will see major events being prioritized over everything else.
“Major events is our top priority,” said Turcotte.
Major team playoff games and major team regular-season games come in second and third for the priority.
Major teams are defined as the Lloydminster junior A Bobcats, Lloydminster junior B Bandits and Lakeland College Rustlers.
The arena seasonal requests are broken into three seasons. There’s the fall season, from the beginning of September to mid-October, the winter season, picking up from mid-October to mid-March, and then the spring and summer season from mid-March to Aug. 30.
Priorities for the off-season see events taking the top spot, with non-profit or charitable youth organizations, for-profit youth organizations, adult organizations and major teams who utilized bookings from the previous season taking the second priority.
“This allows for spring teams, parent groups and non-profit groups to have equitable access to the ice during the off-season,” said Turcotte.
Council discussed winter allocation priorities at the March 9 council meeting as it would impact the teams currently using the Cenovus Energy Hub.
“I’m really struggling with major events being put in front of major team playoff games,” said Coun. David Lopez. “I know that’s happening this year with our junior A team.
“I don’t think major events should be taking precedence over playoffs for any of these major teams. They bring in the revenue, they bring in people year-round.”
Turcotte explained information on events was provided to organizations ahead of time.
“We did provide that information to those organizations early, in May and June,” he said. “One thing about special events I should say is, it’s not just powwows, but Esso Cup for instance, is during the playoff dates. There are major events, too. Not booking in those timeframes could have an issue, too.”
Tracy Simpson, City of Lloydminster executive manager of community development services, explained the conflicting schedules would fall in the second round of junior A playoffs.
“Round 1 of the playoffs should be fine. It’s later playoff (rounds) when we get into that provincial (junior) B tournament and some other events that we may have some conflicts on,” said Simpson.
She said they did have extensive discussions about how they would deal with the major teams’ playoffs.
“We had the exact same comments come forward as Coun. Lopez around should there just be a no-go in there. We felt like that was maybe too harsh. Maybe there would be an opportunity for the right event to put it in playoffs,” she said.
“How do we, within our procedures, following the policy adoption, make sure that we’re communicating about that, we’re picking the right events if there’s major impact that it’s worth it and how do we validate that. That’s hard to articulate in policy language, but we do agree it’s something we consider year-over-year.”
She explained it isn’t a black and white process and the city is in constant communication with groups. Turcotte explained they do have an expectation that user groups communicate with the city and each other.
One of the expectations that we always have with our user groups is communication with us and communication with each other,” he said. “Sometimes, when we get into these situations, it’s about sitting down with both organizations and trying to figure out how we can make it work”
He also explained they use a program to keep track of bookings while administration also has a spreadsheet to ensure they have all the data.
Within the policy, overbooking is not permitted, which is something Turcotte says can happen.
“We want to make sure we have a clause in there that if somebody is purposely overbooking just to keep that allocation, that we are able to put a stop to that,” he said, noting they have user groups that want more ice time
The other point raised by council was the exclusion of the U18 AAA Lancers and the U18 AAA Steelers as major teams.
“We have other U18 teams, so to distinguish two U18 teams away from others would create some conflict in the minor sport world,” said Simpson, explaining the two teams would fall under non-profit or youth teams in the definitions.
Council approved the policy at the March 9 regular council meeting.
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