Heather Wright/The Independent

In its continuing quest to find cash for recreation facilities, Brooke-Alvinston is going to find out how many kids from out of town use the local ball diamonds and arena.

It was at the suggestion of Mayor David Ferguson, who earlier this year wrote letters to four neighbouring municipalities asking them to contribute up to $75,000 to help pay for $2 million in repairs for the arena floor.

No one agreed to a donation, to the frustration of the mayor.

“Why are we supplying ice for other municipalities, and yet our roads are falling apart?”

Ferguson says staff dug up an agreement from 1980 in which Dawn Township agreed to pay 10 per cent of the arena’s operating costs. That has long gone by the wayside.

So Ferguson suggested, and council agree, that the names and addresses of the children in recreation programs be collected with the intent of getting their own municipalities to pay a fee for the service.

“We cannot keep having our taxpayers pay for somebody else’s kid outside the community.

“One would need names: first are they coming in or not coming in, and if there’s not kids coming in, that’s a moot point. If there is a pile of kids coming in, we got to start to address the issue,” Ferguson said.