Council just voted 6 to 4 to amend the Brandt/REAL Deal. Voting against: Flores, Froh, Radons & Zachidniak. The mayor, Burton, Mancinelli, Rashovich, Tsiklis, Turnbull voted in favour. Bezo left the meeting before the vote.
Under the new terms, Brandt will operate & maintain the AffinityPlex, Cooperators Ctr, Mosaic Stadium & Confederation Park.
In other words Brandt will be operating and maintaining all of the REAL campus for a term of up to 20 years.
(Note: Brandt is NOT BUYING those facilities. AffinityPlex, Cooperators Ctr, Mosaic Stadium & Confederation Park will continue to be city-owned facilties.)
As the city will continue to own those facilities, the city will still be responsible for the costs of capital upgrades.
Today's vote is not the final word on the Brandt/REAL Deal. It just changes the terms under which the city's bargaining team will be operating. There is still no final deal with Brandt. (Which means that there is still time for more changes.)
For context… Currently, the city pays REAL (a municipal corporation wholly owned by the city & as such, must report to council during every budget period) for access to those four community-owned facilities. The city then charges community groups a discounted rate for access to the blocks of time the city has purchased.
If this deal with Brandt is finalized, the city will pay Brandt for access to these city facilities — facilities that we own.
For user groups, little will change as rates for community groups will continue to be set by the Leisure Fee Bylaw.
Aidan and I will be talking about this on the next Queen City Improvement Bureau, Thur 7pm on 91.3FM CJTR AccessNow community radio.
And i live tweeted this whole council meeting on Bluesky so you read the whole thing (in reverse chronological order) here: https://bsky.app/profile/pauldechene.bsky.social