All of the pieces are now potentially in place for a fully funded new animal housing facility at Alex Fraser Park in Quesnel.
The North Cariboo Joint Committee has endorsed another funding application for the project and has also voted to dip into it’s own reserves to help pay the bill.
Quesnel City Council members and the northern Cariboo Regional District Directors will apply for 30 thousand dollars to the Northern Development Initiative Trust Community Halls and Recreation Facilities fund and will also take $26,780 out of the Sub-Regional Recreation Capital Reserve budget.
Throw in the 500 thousand dollar request to the Rural Dividend Fund and Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson says their reserve money is well spent…
“So given that we thought we were putting an application for kind of a first phase building of 500k, we’re actually getting pretty much a complete building for 576 thousand, this is a pretty decent investment for us of 26 thousand.”
Simpson says they are also now getting a nearly completed building…
“That initial assessment was for a pretty incomplete building. The main floor would have all been completed. The second floor would have been basically left as an open venue. My understanding now is they’ve actually refined further and from that nominal contribution from us 26,700 we’re getting an almost completed building, it’ll just be some minor refinements, so everything is in, they’ve figured out what they want the second floor to look like, the whole first floor, the kind of vet isolation area, the storage capacity, everything else.”
This building would replace the current fur and feather building and it is hoped that it can be built prior to the upcoming fire season as it would house animals in the event of more wildfires like we had last year.