Seniors sue city over facility deal

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This article was published 20/08/2020 (2216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg is facing a lawsuit that alleges it failed to fulfil a management agreement for the Bronx Park Community Centre and instead proposed a new deal that a seniors centre fears it can’t afford.

The Good Neighbours Active Living Centre (GNALC), a seniors centre with 1,150 members, filed a statement of claim on Thursday. The court document claims the city was supposed to let the group co-manage the facility with the Bronx Park Community Club, an arrangement it says led Good Neighbours to relocate from 755 Henderson Hwy. to the community centre in 2009.

“We’ve spent more than a decade trying to be recognized as a co-manager of this facility but unsuccessfully,” said John Feldsted, the chairman of the Good Neighbours Facility Working Group Committee, during a Thursday news conference. “When the city announced last year we would become a tenant in the building, thereby giving up our rights under the original agreement, we (had) no option but to act to (protect) our organization and members.”

Feldsted said the city sent a notice in July 2019 that proposes to see Good Neighbours treated as a tenant or third-party user of the building.

Feldsted said he fears that would force the group to begin leasing the space at a rate it can’t afford to pay. Based on operating costs, he estimates that would cost the centre about $5,000 per month, retroactive to January 2018.

“That amounts to about $160,000 to date, with $5,000 a month ongoing… that would certainly put us in an impossible financial situation,” said Feldsted.

GNALC estimates that cost would force it to shut down within two years.

Kenneth Muys, GNALC’s lawyer, said the city has not confirmed a potential lease cost, however, or provided details on the proposed change.

“Good Neighbours is somewhat still in the dark here, after all these years, as to where the city is proposing to go with this,” said Muys.

Feldsted said the centre tried to deal with the matter out of court.

“I want to emphasize that a lawsuit is our very last resort… We have pleaded for recognition for years,” he said.

The statement of claim asks a judge to declare the co-management agreement “valid and enforceable” and seeks an unspecified amount of damages from the city for allegedly breaching that deal.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Muys noted that in 2009, when the facility received a $6.5-million expansion and began housing both groups, it was welcomed as a recreation hub to serve all ages. In a city press release about the expansion, then-mayor Sam Katz refers to the facility as “a model of intergenerational partnerships.”

Members of the seniors centre said it offers programs that help seniors interact and avoid social isolation, including fitness classes, education sessions and a used bookstore.

“I think for all the members in Good Neighbours, the socialization they get… makes their life happen,” said Ingrid Jarowec, a GNALC board vice-president who also exercises and plays games at the centre.

In an email, City of Winnipeg spokesman David Driedger stated the city won’t respond to the specific claims, due to the upcoming legal proceedings.

Driedger added that a joint-use agreement for the community centre expired on Sept. 24, 2019, so “the city has been working towards a resolution of the matter that respects the interests of all involved.”

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga