REGINA - Regina City Council came and went as many motions passed with no issues. However, one topic brought out concerns from some councillors.
As part of the 2024 Mid-Year Forecast Report, a motion was put forth to reduce the rent costs for the Saskatchewan Roughriders at their home, Mosaic Stadium, by $1.33 million of the $3.6 million accounts receivable.
From the team's perspective, they did not play in Mosaic Stadium in 2020 and played during a shortened Canadian Football League (CFL) season in 2021, so they had no reason to use the facility for over a year.
Ward 8 Coun. Shanon Zachidniak mentioned during the council meeting, "hearing a number of questions and concerns from community members in relation to this debt forgiveness… I know that the community doesn’t have all the background information about the discussions that have happened." She added, "from what I have heard from residents, they are not in favour of us writing off $1.33 million debt."
Zachidniak also voiced her disappointment because she couldn’t ask the representative of the Roughriders any questions that the people in her Ward had regarding the rent reduction.
The topic of payment for rent has been an ongoing negotiation between Regina and the Roughriders since April 2023, according to city manager Niki Anderson.
Anderson said the $1.33 million reduction in rent is seen as a fair deal between the city and the Roughriders.
She pointed out that ending up in a court dispute with the Roughriders "would not be a risk I would like to take financially."
Ward 9 Coun. Jason Mancinelli made a comment during the discussion, which he said, "that stadium is basically activated by the Roughrider football club. I am not a big fan of it, but it is part of our city."
Mancinelli mentioned the agreement between the city and Roughriders was "friendly." He added, "These [the Sask. Roughriders] are a community partner [with Regina] that went through COVID like the rest of us... I don’t think they came out of it any richer than the rest of us. And trying to get a door closed to look forward [to the future] and to build [upon] is probably where we should be going with this. It [the agreement] comes to a middle ground that’s actually higher on our side of the middle ground than their side. We get two-thirds [of the] payment [from the Mosaic Stadium rent] out of it. Starting to tangle in legal costs. I am not willing to champion a fight against the Riders to try to see if there’s a legal opinion here that I can't see right now to try to get out a couple of extra dollars out of it. Because I'm pretty sure will loose."
Council ended up voting 9-2 in favour of passing the motion, with Ward 6 Coun. Victoria Flores and Zachidniak not in favour of moving it forward.
After the council meeting, Regina Mayor Chad Bachynski was asked about the concerns and frustrations from councillors regarding the rent reductions.
Bachynski noted, "there was some feelings maybe about their [the Roughriders lack of] attendance, but at the end of the day, I look at it as a contract issue. And I believe that there's a lot of work done to get to the point that we did."
As someone who has dealt with a number of contracts before, Bachynski said, "there is a lot of work that goes into negotiation in those contracts and coming to a resolution."
He would not comment on whether the deal was fair but gave the city administration credit for doing their best to get the city in that position.
As for City Council, they won’t meet again till the new year.
