Pontiac pool preliminary drawings shown at AGM, committee seeking $8 million grant

6 May 2024 à 1:31 pm

Updated on 6 May 2024 à 3:29 pm

The Piscine Pontiac Pool committee held their annual general meeting on May 2 at the Fort-Coulonge municipal hall, with about 20 people in attendance.

While there have been efforts to build a pool in the region in the past, the current iteration of the project was spearheaded by MRC Pontiac Warden Jane Toller in 2017, prior to her election. She has since stepped down as president of the organization and stated numerous times that funding for the project will not come from municipal shares. In August 2018, the Municipality of Fort-Coulonge sold the committee a piece of land next to the arena for $1.

The project is under the care of a non-profit organization headed by former Otter Lake Mayor Kim Cartier-Villeneuve, who was appointed pro-warden of the MRC by Toller from 2017 to 2021.

So far the project has received several significant grants for preliminary work, including $180,000 in 2021 from the FARR program (precursor to the FRR program) for construction plans, and $225,000 for engineering plans through the FRR component 4. They were recently approved for a CECOBOIS grant which is conditional on the use of wood in the construction, with $175,000 currently available for designs and another $725,000 available if the project reaches the construction stage.

The meeting mainly consisted of a presentation by Robert Magne of Lapointe Magne & Ass., who presented the current plans for the facility via video conference.

Magne explained that they had made an application to the PAFIRSPA program for $8 million, and expected to know whether they were approved between June and September this year. He estimated that the overall cost of the project would be $12.2 million, with the Piscine Pontiac committee responsible to fundraise roughly $1.2 million.

Fort-Coulonge councillors Gaétan Graveline and Dave Hérault voiced their concerns about a business plan, if the committee is able to secure the funding to build the facility. While Cartier-Villeneuve said that there was a business plan submitted with the grant application, she was unable to answer their questions in the meeting regarding things like estimated operating costs, which they found concerning.

CHIP 101.9 requested more details on the cost estimate that was shown during the presentation, as well as the business plan that was mentioned but never produced. Cartier Villeneuve said these estimates were included in group’s grant application but did not provide further details.