The days to vote for the Nelson skateboard park in the Aviva Fund may run out tomorrow but last Monday city council voted to put the park up for a provincial grant.
The provincial grant which could see 80 per cent funding for the skate park is part of a Community Recreation Project.
"There was a fair bit of discussion around the options," said Mayor John Dooley. "We had three options in front of us. But the one that the staff recommended was the pedestrian network improvements. And the one that council decided to move forward was the skate park which I happen to thing was a no brainer."
The third option recommended by staff was the completion of Davies Street Park.
"Those types of grants don't fly across the desk of council very often. To come up with a 20 per cent contribution from the community and to have 80 per cent covered is a pretty wonderful thing," said councillor Deb Kozak, who sits on the city's recreation committee.
"The stipulation that council made, I don't even know if staff has had the chance to talk to the skateboard society yet, I'm sure they have but I haven't heard. We are asking that the Kootenay Lake Outdoor Skateboard Park Society come up with their contribution," said Kozak.
The society has indicated to council that they have currently raised $60,000 and have also paid for all of the plans that have been done so far for the park.
Kozak said that because of the significance of a grant this size she mentioned in the special council meeting that there be discussion around other potential projects that could used funding like what could be provided by the provincial grant.
"One of my comments was simply that it's not often when we have a big big project to move forward that it seems like where never going to able to raise the money for it or we don't have the money in reserves," she said. "When ever the province comes forward with those big cost sharing things it's those big ones that we want to move forward."
She also said that the work around the pedestrian walkways network didn't seem as pertinent because there needs to be work done with CP Rail which would exceed the deadline of the grant application.
"During discussion what we came to the conclusion of is the active transportation plan, a lot of what was proposed by staff involved also having the co-operation and agreement of CP Rail because it's walkways over their land and at this time it's unclear whether we'll have permission to develop those corridors across their land, so it made sense that we went with the skate park at this time," she said.
Voting for the Aviva Fund ends on Thursday, to vote visit acommunityfund.org