CITY OF COLD LAKE RELEASE: Cold Lake City Council will be considering plans to compartmentalize spaces at the Cold Lake Energy Centre to limit public access during the day and improve overall security at the facility.
The discussion began at Council’s Corporate priorities meeting on Feb. 20, 2024, after several fights in the hallways and washrooms, and reports of continued vandalism throughout the facility. Most of the incidents occur in the daytime hours, during the weekdays. The latest instance of vandalism resulted in the north elevator being taken out of service due to the control buttons being severely damaged.
This occurred just after the field house elevator was repaired after significant vandalism required a complete overhaul of the infrastructure. It took nearly nine months for the work to be completed.
The facility has surveillance cameras throughout the facility, however, it is difficult to cover all areas, given the size of the facility. The issues have occurred regardless of attempts to ensure random supervision and municipal enforcement programming in the facility.
“We’ve had challenges with costly vandalism, and there have been some significant fights between groups of youth that have been a significant cause for concern,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “The majority of this behaviour is happening during the day, from Monday through Friday, and it has reached a point where we need to think about curtailing access in areas where no public programming is happening. We need to prevent the hallways and empty spaces from becoming hangouts for idle youth.”
The City of Cold Lake currently allows for free access to much of the facility through three entrances during the Energy Centre’s hours of operation. The draft plan presented to the corporate priorities committee would see one point of access established to ensure people accessing the Energy Centre during the morning and day-time hours from Monday to Friday are monitored.
Evening hours and weekends could then revert to the usual access, with all three entrances being opened, as public programming generally begins to open up in the late afternoon and early evening. Priority would be to ensure that wellness centre users, walking track users, and people attending drop-in sessions could easily access their programming. The city’s administration believes that this can all be done through the Energy Centre’s front doors, providing for greater security, monitoring, and more control over who is in the building during the day.
Other rolling gates or other automated doors or barriers could be used to ensure that certain areas can only be accessed when programming is occurring, or during certain operational hours when the public at large is in attendance.
Not all incidents are occurring in the daytime hours. Council also signaled to administration that it would support security patrols outside of the facility during the off hours. Such a program would carry an additional operating cost of approximately $150,000 annually.
An enhancement to the facility’s surveillance camera system is also being considered to deter vandalism and anti-social behaviour. The system will also provide the best evidence possible to the RCMP when such acts do occur to enable prosecution and or fines to be levied, or both.
“Council has given administration the go-ahead to examine the best way to limit access and monitor who is using the facility during certain hours,” Kevin Nagoya, Chief Administrative Officer of the City of Cold Lake, said. “Council is proud of the facility and the amenities it offers the public. It is also a great source of public pride and has hosted many important public events. But it has grown tremendously over the years, and our approach to access and security needs to grow with it.”
A recent spate of break-ins at the facility has been curbed entirely after upgrades to the alarm system were completed and administration then turned its attention to resolving other persistent issues.
“We know that these changes will affect customer service and, in some cases, might be an inconvenience, but the reality is that as the facility grows, we need to have a better handle on what people can access and when they can do so,” Copeland said. “Council has asked administration to come up with further plans that we can have a closer look at in the near future.”
Administration will continue to work on the plans for security and compartmentalization at the centre before bringing it back to a future Corporate Priorities meeting for further feedback.
