Gym Use Proposal From WCSS

To: Jerry Lining and SD70 Board of Trustees

Braden Smith and Mayor and Council of the District of Tofino



The Wickaninnish Community School Society has been watching the negotiations between the District of Tofino and SD70 related to community use of the school gym and we have come up with a proposal that could expedite community access to the SD70 facility. Over the past many years, School District 70 has been very generous in sharing the gym and the school facilities for our community’s use. With steady cutbacks, it is completely understandable that educational dollars can no longer subsidize its use. We recognize that it is not the school district’s responsibility to provide a recreation space to our community and believe that the District of Tofino should consider the development of an appropriate recreation facility a priority.



That being said, we recognize that there is not currently such a facility and we would like to propose a temporary (one year) solution to the situation so that community members can access the gym as soon as possible.

This proposal will require a partnership.



WCSS

We are prepared to redirect our resources so that our coordinator can focus energy on supervising the gym during week nights. This will require us to redirect our society goals related to other projects but we recognize that access to the gym is a large community concern. We feel as though redirecting our resources is something that we can do to meet this community need and expedite access to the facility.

We would offer scheduled, supervised access to the gym, free of charge on week nights. This offer is based on the acceptance of our invitation to partner by the District of Tofino and SD70.

We would like to invite parties to partner with us as follows.



District of Tofino

We request that the District of Tofino pay the annual gym maintenance fee to SD70. In a recent meeting that Board members had with the CAO, it was indicated that both the gym maintenance fee and evening supervisor wages were available in the district budget. We think that it is more than reasonable to request this fee of the District of Tofino, considering that the District will be using the SD70 building as a primary recreation facility and the WCSS is prepared to staff the facility and put other projects on hold for this year.



School District 70

We are hoping that SD70 will be amenable to this arrangement and allow us to proceed with community access to their facility.



There are obviously details to work out but we are hoping that by adjusting our society’s goals to meet this need in our community we can expedite community access to this SD70 facility.



Please contact us so that we can work together to make this happen.





Sincerely,



Board of Directors for the WCSS