Ville de Saint-Lazare is aware that citizens are exposed to a huge amount of information which requires exercising judgment. It is not unusual for Town information to be tainted by the perception or subjective experience of those conveying the information. For this reason, it is occasionally important to set the record straight.

Since the construction of the new Saint-Lazare sports complex, rumors persist as for its pertinence and use made by residents, sports associations and the Town. A little background review could help clarify any misinterpretation.

Why a sports complex?
Let’s recall that the construction of the Sports complex was made possible thanks to the partnership and close collaboration between the Town and the Société en commandite CSSL (a private entrepreneurship) represented by Mr. D. Laventure. This project allowed us to provide Saint-Lazare with a long awaited sports facility to suit the needs in ice time and indoor field requirements of our numerous athletes. Before the complex was built, our athletes had to travel out-of-town (Vaudreuil, Rigaud, Hawkesbury, etc.) to practice their sport in other facilities.

Currently, the sports facility welcomes a growing population of local indoor soccer players (480), hockey players (630), football players (400), ringuette players (220), artistic skaters (220) and baseball players (150) just to mention some of the main users of the complex.

A win-win agreement
Carrying out this project required a multimillion dollar investment; which was entirely assumed by the CSSL. To allow this construction to become a reality, the Town, in turn, agreed to become the main leaseholder by guaranteeing to rent both the arena and indoor field for an equivalent of 2 752 prime-time hours and 1050 down-time hours for a total expense of approximately $600,000 per year, once the Town has recovered both GST and PST ($578,000 in 2007). Although, “prime-time” is more expensive to rent, it is also easier to sublease. Let’s also note that this 10-year renewable agreement was revised and approved by the Ministry of Municipal affairs and Regions.

This agreement is very beneficial for the Town and the Société en commandite which owns the facility for the following reasons:

The Town:

[1]	Does not have to pay out millions of dollars to provide its residents with a sports facility;
[2]	Does not have to pay the annual cost for the important infrastructure maintenance, renovations and improvement expenses;
[3]	Does not have to pay the cost of full-time staff (salary, social benefits, etc.);
[4]	Does not have to manage operations;
[5]	Does not have to assume building depreciation;
[6]	Recovers 80% to 85% of its expense by subleasing ice and field time to renting associations (hockey, soccer, football, baseball, flag football, artistic skating, ringuette)
[7]	Organizes drop-in activities (skate, hockey, soccer) for its residents at a reasonable cost; ($4 for hockey and $2 for soccer and skating). Note that 13 600 people per year take advantage of these activities generating a $25,000 additional income for the Town per year;
[8]	Can use additional space by renting 2 locals for its associations;
[9]	Collects $72,000 dollars in property tax annually from this commercial building which couldn’t otherwise be collected if the building belonged to the Town.

If you do the math, the Town really only pays less that $50,000 per year to allow its residents to take advantage of a local infrastructure, to reduce our athletes’ travel frequency and travel time and to increase the quality of time they really spend practicing their sport. Residents can also take advantage of other services offered by the owner, such as a fitness centre, a restaurant, and community and sports events (equestrian festival, hockey matches, costume parties, sports camps, as well as additional ice time offered by CSSL).

In turn, the Société en commandite does not have to manage the rental aspect with the numerous various associations, nor does it have to manage collection.

Let’s recall that one of the Town’s main priorities is to cater to its families’ cultural and recreational needs and expectation. The Sports complex is one of the many examples of the Town catering to those needs just as were the Community Centre, the Municipal Library, the water park, the bicycle trails, the youth clubhouses, the outdoor sports grounds, which all had one thing in common, to provide diversified services to a slice of a diversified population, not necessarily taking into account an equal number of users.

At press time, out of the 3,802 hours rented by the Town, only a one-hour period was available for ice time, and only a few hours remained to sublet the indoor field between September 15th and October 3rd as well as the Christmas period.