Photo: Luc Rempel

Higher prices for non-Salmon Arm residents using Salmon Arm recreation facilities could become a reality, but not until next year.

At the March 24 Salmon Arm city council meeting, Darin Gerow, general manager of Salmon Arm Recreation, presented council with one year's worth of data showing where users of Salmon Arm recreation facilities live.

“Over the past year, Salmon Arm Recreation has been collecting postal codes to profile where our users live,” Gerow explained. “This includes postal codes from the recreation centre, Rogers Rink and city sports fields and courts.”

Data gathered by the team showed that 22 per cent of SASCU Recreation Centre users were not from Salmon Arm.

Eighteen per cent of out-of-town facility users hail from Area C, or the South Shuswap, while 26 per cent come from Area G or the Sorrento and Blind Bay areas. Residents from the Regional District of the North Okanagan, which includes towns like Enderby and Armstrong, make up 25 per cent of out-of-town users.

The 22 per cent figure represented a total of 4,323 postal codes.

Not fair for Salmon Arm users?

Councillors in attendance thanked Salmon Arm Recreation for collecting this data.

“We've needed this for some time, and I do want to thank you and your team for collecting this information,” said Coun. Kevin Flynn.

“I feel very strongly that we have to do something about our taxpayers subsidizing, and I would say subsidizing with tax dollars, about 25 per cent of the usage.”

The councillor noted new pools are priced at about $60 million, adding he believes it isn't fair to city residents if out-of-town users don't chip in.

Flynn said this could be accomplished through taxation for certain electoral areas if they can pass a referendum to assent to the tax, or through a differential pricing system similar to what is currently in place in Vernon.

Coun. Tim Lavery said he would be presenting this report to the board of the Columbia Shuswap Regional District at an upcoming meeting.

Lavery said he would work with staff, Flynn and Coun. Debbie Cannon to craft a motion for the next Salmon Arm city council meeting. This motion would request staff prepare a report on how communities of a similar size pay for their recreation facilities.

“I don't think we have to reinvent the wheel here,” he said. “There are models out there, from a number of communities.”

Lavery added he would like to see a report come back to the council by the fall for consideration as part of the 2026 budget process, and to accommodate the possibility of CSRD electoral areas holding referendums.

“I will wait for staff reports and options and look at that with due consideration,” Lavery said. “But I currently feel that a system of Salmon Arm residency pricing for key rec facilities is needed.”

He added he feels that a differential pricing system is necessary for Salmon Arm residents going forward, and that it would include residents of any electoral areas that agreed to a tax requisition to help pay for recreation facilities maintenance costs.

He also proposed giving Salmon Arm residents preferential access to local recreation programs that he described as "highly oversubscribed.”

Flynn said part of the issue is that residents don't understanding how the city pays for its recreation facilities.

User fees at Salmon Arm recreation facilities only pay for about half of the maintenance costs, the other half comes directly from taxes paid by residents of Salmon Arm.

“We're approaching $2 million I believe, of taxation between the two facilities, and to not have any of it except $60,000 total from our regional area is not fair and is not right, and it's not what's going on in the rest of the province,” he said.

Lavery's motion is expected to be presented for discussion at the next Salmon Arm city council meeting on April 14.