Grand Forks City Council softens communit centre guarantee

Published 4:30 pm Thursday, January 15, 2026

The 2026 Strategic Plan was up for review and adoption, but wording around purchasing a building for a community centre and other areas raised a few eyebrows, resulting in no guarantee a centre would be purchased this year.

When asked if Mayor and Council could vote on the 2026 Strategic Plan, Councillor Rod Zielinski said he had some issues over a years-long quest to acquire a city community centre.

He called the wording to purchase a building a “bold statement” of finding a funding source and purchasing an existing building. He said it should say “may look at.”

While acknowledging Councillor Zielinski’s comments, Councillor Christine Thompson said the 2026 Strategic Plan as presented emphasizes what was discussed at the recent Strategic Planning Session.

“Beyond purchasing a Community Centre, I’m quite happy with what is presented to us,” she said.

However, she did put forth a motion to adopt the Strategic Plan, but with Councillor Zielinski’s recommendations to replace “will purchase” to “may purchase.”

Details and a description of what kind of building and how much is also missing, added Councillor Zak Ebourne-Stoodley, so he too wanted to see a “softening” of the wording on purchasing a community centre.

How the city could go about purchasing a community centre also varies, added city CAO Duncan Redfearn. If it’s part of an RDKB-driven situation, they would have to establish a service and hold a referendum with residents. A local government has purchasing powers, so long as they have the funds to buy a building and not have to borrow over a certain amount.

The details and options can be discussed during budgeting time, Redfearn said.

Zielinski also pointed out issues with replacement of the East End Reservoir and exploring additional well options and future well sites. His issue, he explained, is it doesn’t sound like there is any progress over the next two years from the current situation.

“That’s where we are now, that’s where we’ve been for the past five or six years,” he said. “We tried testing for some wells and we still don’t have anything new. There still a question of Wells four and five and is there a water quality issue where we can use the resource, but still clean it up?”

The other issues he had was continuing to improve community safety, asking if they can be sure it reads the city increases its bylaw officer presence, as well as adding that all positions are filled. A change was made to remove the “fill the bylaw officer” from priority and change it to a result.

Council voted in favour of the changes.

All of these changes, he said, were to show taxpayers council is budgeting for this, adding that since this is an election year, he will be pushing for specific numbers this year, as he did in the previous election.

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