BC: Should non-residents pay more for recreation facilities?
Trail and Rossland residents are in a bit of a tiff these days over recreation facility charges.
Trail, 10 minutes from Rossland and home to most of the high-quality recreational facilities and sports fields in the region, has charged out-of-towners higher fees to use their facilities since 2009.
That's because a recreation fee deal between Trail and its neighbours fell apart, and Rossland and Trail never agreed to a deal after a summer's worth of negotiations in 2015.
"We believe that it's only fair that residents of areas that have no agreement with the City of Trail be subject to a higher fee structure," said Trail Mayor Mike Martin. "I can assure you that fee structure comes nowhere near compensating for the heavy subsidization that the taxpayers of Trail provide towards these facilities."
However, Sean O'Farrell, a player and manager for the Rossland United men's soccer club, says it's unfair that Trail charges out-of-town residents more than what residents pay to use recreational facilities.
His team pays over $1,300 per year to play on a Trail field. If his team was made up of Trail residents, the fees would be closer to $1,000.
"Fair enough, they do have the lion's share of infrastructure in place in their town, but we have a soccer field in Rossland that we don't charge the teams from Trail to play on," O'Farrell said. "There's not really any sort of rhyme or reason to it other than the City of Trail wanted an increase in fees."
It's an interesting issue. Rossland residents shouldn't get a free ride by relying on Trail taxpayers to fund and subsidize expensive recreation facilities. Rossland should either pony up and contribute to the things they use in Trail, or quiet down.