Henderson Pool. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Most city facilities in Lethbridge won’t be open for start of Stage 2 on Friday

Jun 10, 2020 | 12:33 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The Government of Alberta announced Tuesday that they would be going ahead with Stage 2 of the relaunch strategy on Friday, June 12, well ahead of schedule.

READ MORE: Stage 2 of Alberta’s relaunch confirmed for Friday, June 12

Some of the newly allowed activities, with health restrictions, include K-12 schools for diploma exams and summer schools, libraries, more surgeries, community halls, team sports, wellness and personal services, movie and live theatres, community halls, indoor recreation and fitness facilities, gyms, pools for leisure swimming, instrumental concerts casinos and bingo halls, and VLTs in restaurants and lounges.

Director of Emergency Management Marc Rathwell says, while it was great to learn about this, the city was not given any prior notice about Stage 2 and was therefore not able to plan ahead.

“As soon as the premier and Dr. Hinshaw came out, that’s when we got our notice. We’ve been asking, at times pleading, with the provincial operations centre group, Alberta Health, and the province to share those details with us so we can have some kind of prep time so we could have some of those things working ahead of time, but we received no other information.”

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“Just like a regular Alberta citizen, we get it on the news,” adds Rathwell.

Staff in the Recreation and Culture department are working to get up to speed, but General Robin Harper told LNN there were a few surprises in Tuesday’s announcement.

“The major facilities that we were forced to close, which we expected to be included in Stage 3, have now been moved up quite a bit earlier, so we don’t have any firm dates as to when we’re going to be opening any of those facilities.”

One example of this is pools.

Pools were originally part of Stage 3 of the relaunch strategy but were surprisingly moved up to Stage 2. This includes aquatic sports, diving, lane swimming, swimming camps, swimming lessons, drop-in, leisure aquatic features (such as lazy rivers, water slides, and wave pools), and public swimming.

It will likely still be a little while still before swimming facilities and other city-owned amenities are ready to open.

“We need to recall some of our staff that we laid off when we closed all of our facilities, we need to train some of our staff on the new cleaning procedures and the new guidelines and restrictions, putting hand sanitizer stations up, marking facilities for distancing requirements, etc.”

“Also, the big part of that is we have to look at refilling our pools, which are currently empty, we need to fire up our ice plants again and we need to get ice made in those facilities,” adds Harper.

For now, he believes it is important to manage expectations.

While Harper understands that many people are excited to use the city’s recreational facilities again, he says it will likely still be a couple of weeks before that can happen.

A list of which City of Lethbridge services and buildings are open and running can be found on their website here.

Business operators can learn more about reopening requirements on the Biz Connect page from the Government of Alberta here.

Note: This article originally stated that swimming activities under Stage 2 would be restricted to just lane swimming and lessons. The City of Lethbridge later found out from the provincial government that more types of aquatic recreation are allowed.