INNISFAIL - Members of the Innisfail Horseshoe Club are getting their desired new location for 2019 but they are still not happy.
They also wanted a new clubhouse for next year, something they've never had in 33 years at their current location. But the town says that won't happen next year.
"The clubhouse feature would be something that would be developed for the site as a whole for everyone," said planner Meghan Jenkins, who is the town's point person on the new skatepark project, which includes moving the horseshoe pit to the new location. "It may end up coming out of this whole process but at this point the clubhouse isn't included in the project... not as part of the current budgeted project."
Moving the horseshoe pit became a priority for the town earlier this year when council decided not to change the location of the new skatepark at the intersection of 42nd Street and 51st Avenue, a spot initially selected by the previous council and administration. The horseshoe club, which vehemently objected to the skatepark site selection, recommended an alternate site about 400 metres south of the current one, an empty field with the Rotary Park playground to the east and a baseball field to the west.
Council approved the new site and the $94,000 cost to move the horseshoe pit at its Aug. 13 regular meeting. The horseshoe pit relocation and budget is part of the overall skatepark construction project that could cost more than $1 million.
Myrna Kissick, president of the horseshoe club and its primary spokesperson, was out of town the week when council approved the new horseshoe pit location and budget and was not available for comment. However, when she returned last week Kissick said she was pleased council approved the new site but wants more information about when the new clubhouse will be built. The issue has been a top priority with the club for more than a year when club members, realizing the new skatepark location was not going to change, realized their best option was to move.
Kissick and club members were scheduled to have a meeting last Friday with Jenkins to talk about the clubhouse issue.
"That is why we are having a meeting so we can get it all straight We want it through completely, everything - the courts in, our clubhouse, everything," said Kissick last week. "We don't want to go back and say, 'you didn't do this, you didn't do that.' It's got to be completed. That's why we have to have other meetings so we know where we are at."
Kissick said club members also want to know why there is a pitcher's mound by a fence separating the new location and current ball field when there wasn't one earlier when the site was first viewed.
"That might be a little bit of a problem. We can't have that there. Why they (town) let them put that there when we were negotiating that is beyond me," said Kissick.
Jenkins said the clubhouse idea is not off the table but a project that will take a little bit longer to develop as discussions must also include other user groups, who have long been wanting a proper shelter and storage facility.
"For the clubhouse we need to work with the baseball groups, work with everybody else that uses it and come up with a design and a building that is going to function to serve everybody's purposes," said Jenkins.
She said the pitcher's mound created near the new location will stay as it was made only for pitchers to warm up and won't be a problem for horseshoers or for designers when constructing the new horseshoe pit.
