For the second time in less than two months, Spectra Venue Management came to city council looking for additional funding for Mosaic Place. 

During a council meeting on Aug. 23, city council approved up to $150,000 for the start-up costs for the food and beverage services. 

On Tuesday night, Mosaic Place general manager Ryan MacIvor was once again before city council asking for an additional $275,000 for operation costs to get the facility through to the end of the year. 

“Mosaic Place has a cash flow problem where we're calling the staff early due to the cancelling of the provincial state of emergency, the start-up costs for the WHL and AAA, as well as recreational hockey have all impacted the building,” MacIvor explained. 

He pointed to the fact that the arena in Oshawa saw an increase of $1 million to its subsidy, Abbotsford had an increase of $580,000, the South Okanagan Events Centre had an increase of $600,000 and Evraz Place and SaskTel Centre have seen increases in their lines of credit.

He added that it has been a difficult past couple of years for Mosaic Place, with the cancellation of events, hockey games and curling, but they did everything possible to cut costs. 

“At the end of the ice season, we laid off 63 per cent of the staff of the venue, bringing staffing levels to 37 per cent of operation,” MacIvor said. 

To fund the additional costs, city manager Jim Puffalt said the city will have to wait and see what the year-end finances of the city look like. 

“But at this point in time, we can't crystal ball to the end of the year. At very least, we would be able to use the surplus that we've accumulated over the past few years to cover off whatever we can't cover through the year’s operations,” he said. 

Coun. Heather Eby felt that the funding would more than likely have to come out of the accumulated surplus, adding that she’s always been against drawing out of the surplus because of situations like this. 

“This is a critical thing that needs to be funded now and we are continuing to draw down our accumulated surplus, and now when we really need it, it's going to be lower than it should be,” Eby said. 

The funding passed with Acting Mayor Dawn Luhning as the only one opposed.  

She felt that the subsidy for Mosaic Place needs to be seriously looked at during budget time to avoid having Spectra consistently coming back to city council because more funding is needed. 

This year, Mosaic Place had a subsidy of $864,307 that has already been paid out for the facility. 

“There's hockey, there's curling, there are events. What should the taxpayers be subsidizing that facility for and come to a point somewhere where we say, OK, this is the money that we're willing to provide this facility, because this is the subsidy level or whatever it is,” Luhning said. 

Coun. Crystal Froese said giving additional funding is never a good thing, but the city has invested too much in Mosaic Place for it to fail. 

“These facilities are 100 per cent paid along, of course with corporate sponsorship, but by taxpayers. It came from the Western Diversification Fund, which our community partnered with and raised $11 million for. So, there's a lot invested in this success here, and the big thing that we're struggling with is the pandemic,” she said. 

Along with the additional funding, council also approved extending the repayment of the food and beverage start-up funding from Dec. 31 to June 2022. 

Of the $150,000 that was authorized by city council, Mosaic Place has used $100,000 with $85,000 left to pay back to the city through food and drink sales. 

Coun. Jamey Logan reclused himself from this agenda item due to a conflict of interest.