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- Your onlY locallY owned newspaper • serving the cnp since 1930 • FeBruarY 6, 2019 ~ vol. 89 no. 6 -
End of an Era for Alberta Stella Arena
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Herald Archives photo Anna Kroupina photo
A group of councillors and community minded individuals who salvaged material from the old Blairmore Arena for use in the erection of a brand new (Albert Stella Arena) curling rink and arena that was opened in 1955. Back row, left to right; Guido Martini, John Gibos, ?, William Jallep, Mr. Bannan, Bill Gray, Max Brown and George Brown. Front row, left to right, Joe Gibos, Ken Reese, Mr. McAndrew, ?, ?, Arthur Decoux. See full story on page 2.
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2 – crowSnESt PASS HErALD – Wednesday, January 30, 2019
End of an Era - closure of Albert Stella Memorial Arena Engineering firms concludes structure could face catastrophic failure
DAVID SELLES Pass Herald Reporter
One of the longest lasting rinks in the Crowsnest Pass is officially closed. After a lengthy life as part of the Crowsnest Pass, the doors to Albert Stella Memorial Arena were closed on January 29 due to the arena being deemed unsafe for use. A statement from the municipality says that an engineering consultant found the arena unsafe for use “under wind and snow loads, which could result in catastrophic failure under these conditions.” Albert Stella Memorial Arena was built in 1955 and named after former councillor and profound community member Albert Stella. A long history of the arena includes highlights of hosting the opening ceremonies for the Special Winter Olympics on February 24, 1995 and hosting the figure skating events during the games. Albert Stella Memorial Arena was also used during the Southern Al-
berta Winter Games that were held from March 1-4 of 1984 as a dining and social centre for participants and was the starting point for the march to the bottom of the Pass Powderkeg that ceremonially started the fifth Alberta Winter Games. This arena has been a massive part of the community for many years and has most recently been used for gymnastics, skateboarding, wall climbing, soccer and lacrosse. In 1972, a curling rink was added to the existing structure, with a kitchen upgrade also being added in 1984 and a dressing room added in 1991. The building has been in times of trouble for many years now. This wasn’t the first time talk of closing the arena crept into council chambers. Back in 2011, the municipality commissioned a study on all of the local facilities and at that time the Albert Stella Arena was already labeled as needing significant amounts of work to make it a safe
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building. Mayor Painter says that another discussion was had in 2014 about how to move forward with the building. “Another study was done and that study was saying that it would cost around $5,000,000 in improvements to bring it up to standards.” The building was also temporarily closed in 2014 before being re-opened for use. In 2015, the municipality invested $62,854 into the facility to keep it usable for the next couple of years, but weren’t able to provide the full $4.215 million estimated to fully repair the Albert Stella arena. At that time, council also came to the realization that the lifespan of the building was nearing the end and the mayor says they budgeted $200,000 for removal of the building and that money has been carried over through the budget over the last few years. Council then decided they wanted to do another check in on the arena earlier this month. “We wanted to know where we stood with the building so we hired a structural engineer and the report that came back told us the building is in very bad shape and needed to be closed immediately,” said Mayor Painter. The result of that study forced council to close the arena immediately. Mayor Painter says that council is currently trying to find a place to relocate the groups who still used Albert Stella Arena on a regular basis. “We're in the process of trying to relocate these user groups so they can
Photos courtesy Crowsnest Museum
Top photo: Speaches are made as part of the opening ceremony for the Albert Stella Memorial Arena. Middle photo: A band plays at the official opening of the arena. Bottom photo: Residents take part in the Bunny Bonspiel in the curling section of the Albert Stella Memorial Arena.
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continue their programs and we are waiting for administration to come back with recommendations of what we can do like how many of these groups we can accommodate and if there are groups that we aren't going to be able to accommodate at this time.” Mayor Painter also added how much this building will be missed by
the community and that the decision to close wasn’t easy.” “The decision wasn’t an easy one to make but it was totally in the interest of public safety that we had to close this building. We don’t want anybody getting hurt. It’s been around for 60 plus years. It’s definitely a fixture in our community and a valued asset. It’s going to be
truly missed by our community.” Council is continuing the process of finding places for all the groups and will continue to look at what is next for the community. Any residents who may know the people in the front photo, can you please contact the Pass Herald either by phone or email.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - Crowsnest PAss herAlD - 3
In the lIne of fIre Between January 31 and February 4, Crowsnest Pass RCMP responded to a total of 45 calls for service including the following reported incidents. Five (5) assaults, one (1) break and enter (residential), one (1) break and enter (other), one (1) fraud/forgery, one (1) threat/harassment, one (1) mischief (vandalism), one (1) theft, two (2) other criminal code, six (6) other provincial statutes, five (5) driving complaints, six (6) motor vehicle collisions, four (4) assistance to general public, two (2) suspicious occurrences, three (3) lost and found, 1 (1) assistance to other agencies, one (1) 911 call (invalid), one (1) false alarm, two (2) animal calls and one (1) municipal bylaw. Theft of package On January 30th 2019, a report of a theft of a package from outside a resident’s home on 17 Avenue in Coleman was received. The theft occurred
~ rCMP news ~
sometime between 5pm and 9 pm.
The complainant did not reply.
Suspicious phone call On January 30th, 2019, RCMP received a report of a suspicious phone call from a person portraying themselves as a member of Revenue Canada asking the complainant to phone back immediately. They did not respond to the call.
Found IPad On February 1st, 2019, an Ipad was found on the corner of 224 Street and 30 Avenue in Bellevue. Anyone who is missing an Ipad can contact the detachment.
Break and enter On January 30th, 2019, RCMP received a complaint of break and enters including theft from garages over the past couple of weeks. A jacket, backpack, pool cue and a leaf/snow blower were stolen from the area of 224 Street in Bellevue. Suspicious phone call #2 On February 1st, 2019, a person complained of a suspicious phone call from someone portraying himself or herself as a person from Stars Lottery saying the person had won a vehicle but had to pay money for it.
Report of Mischief On February 1st, 2019, there was a report of mischief to garage doors located on 225 Street in Bellevue. Break and enter On February 1st, 2019, there was a complaint of a break and enter into a residence located on Frank Slide Road. Numerous household items were taken. Found property recovered tires , gas cans and bike were located on MacGillvray Flats in early December found iphone/camera in Blairmore found bikes turned into Municipal Bylaw of-
fice Crime mapping Crime mapping is available online to residents who are interested can login online at Municipality of Crowsnest Pass website (RCMP crime map for Crowsnest Pass) . Crime mapping shows property crimes that occurred within the past two weeks in our area. Anyone with information regarding any crime is urged to contact the Crowsnest Pass RCMP Detachment at 403-562-2867, or Crimestoppers to remain anonymous at 1-800-422TIPS. Reminder to residents of computer scams, credit cards scams, Grandparent scams, Revenue Canada scams asking for money or cash cards and saying warrants out for arrest, do not give out personal information to persons you don't know. DO NOT OPEN EMAILS if you are suspicious of its origin. do NOT purchase gift cards for payment to Revenue Canada
Doctor recruitment for the Pass DaviD SelleS Pass Herald Reporter
Recruiting doctors in the Crowsnest Pass is something the municipality is currently looking to make easier. Getting doctors to come and stay in the Crowsnest Pass hasn’t always been the easiest thing to do. Currently, the Crowsnest Pass has a total of 11 family physicians on staff but Community Medical Director Dr. Kristy Penner says she’s hopeful that number will go up over the next couple years. “We are finding that there are more unattached patients without a family doctor here for the first time in about 10 years. So we are looking at recruiting one to two family doctors long term and also predicting a few potential retirements in the next year or two.” As Community Medical Director, Dr. Penner is in charge of representing to staff and hospital. She is always looking for ways to improve the
hospital. “Between the site manager and myself we are working to look at quality improvement and quality insurance with some of the data from different areas of the hospital and we've got a new quality council team that's going to get together. Currently we are looking to promote and grow our O-R program.” But another part of her role is the recruitment side of things. Dr. Penner says the community benefits from having university students who come to the Crowsnest Pass. “We are incredibly lucky here in the Crowsnest Pass. We're a big teaching centre both for University of Calgary and University of Alberta medical students as well as rural residents from Lethbridge and Medicine Hat that come here.” She added that some of these students are willing to stay in more of a long-term role. “We get a lot of graduates that come some-
times for a few weeks or a few months often in their first year after finishing their family medicine residency. Over the years we've been very successful recruiting doctors to our community full time following short contracts like that.”
ical staff is happy.” Other areas where they are currently looking for recruitment include a second General Practitioner with extra surgical skills; a second GP-anesthetist to support the one they have now and they also hope to have a visit-
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“We are finding that there are more unattached patients without a family doctor here for the first time in about 10 years. So we are looking at recruiting one to two family doctors.”
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- Dr. Penner Community Medical Director
Dr. Penner added that using the pool of students from these areas, they have been able to recruit around seven doctors in the last eight years. Another part of this process is making sure everything continues to run smoothly. “We want to maintain the services at the hospital. That includes making sure that there is an on call physician 365 days a year. It means making sure that the current med-
ing orthopedic surgeon in the next three to six months. There are currently 16 doctors that the hospital employs in some capacity but Dr. Penner hopes that number will rise. In an effort to recruit more doctors, Councilor Sygutek and Dr. Annand from the Crowsnest Pass will be attending an event in Lethbridge on February 13 to pitch the area to young doctors looking to get their start.
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