SUNDRE — With one member of council opposed, a motion was carried to support Mountain View County’s request to dissolve the 1983 Summer Games Legacy Fund.
Reading background information in council’s agenda package, Linda Nelson, chief administrative officer, said during the Nov. 23 meeting that the county in 1983 partnered with the towns of Didsbury, Carstairs, Olds and Sundre as well as the Village of Cremona and Olds College to host the Alberta Summer Games for the region.
Following the games, there was a surplus amount of $120,000 that was left in the hands of the Town of Olds to manage. Since the fund had not been used for a number of years, the county requested that all of the partners be contacted to ask for mutual support to dissolve the fund, with each partner slated to receive a per capita portion of the remaining amount based on the 1983 census.
The bylaws outlined by the foundation require support from five of the seven partners to dissolve the fund, and the county had already received support from five, essentially making council’s motion symbolic.
“We felt it was important to get a motion of council in support of this initiative regardless,” said Nelson.
A motion to that effect was carried with Coun. Todd Dalke opposed.
“The fact that they already had five partners that already agreed to disband was kind of disheartening,” Dalke told The Albertan during a follow up interview.
The interest generated from the fund should have been invested in scholarships and sporting teams or athletes. For example, he said the wrestling club in Olds has produced Olympic contenders and participants, and the way those athletes reach that level is by first competing at nationals, which requires financial support that many families cannot afford.
“It’s really a shame they didn’t utilize (the legacy fund) to excel those types of athletes,” he said.
“The money’s already there, why aren’t we utilizing it and doing what it was intended for?”
He added that splitting up the fund into smaller amounts and redistributing the monies back to the partners will provide a much less impactful bang for the proverbial buck.
Additionally, the first-term councillor said he had only just recently learned about the fund after being on council for three years.
“I knew nothing of this fund,” said Dalke, adding that had he known about it sooner, he would have advocated for it to be promoted and used as per its original intent.
