The Lions Club is hoping the city of Rossland will show support by way of a letter expressing its dissatisfaction with out-of-town contracting firm Flynn Canada Limited.
At the Jan. 23 council meeting, Lions president Bill Profili explained that there had been a verbal agreement with Flynn last year when the arena roof was being put in.
The agreement was that for use of the curling arena’s facilities, the firm would supply material and labour to fix the Lions campground gazebo’s roof.
However, Profili explained, upon completing the arena renovations the contractor had to leave town, before completing their agreement.
They left with the promise to return and complete the roof when they returned to complete the city hall renovations last year. However, the notice that Flynn gave was too short.
“They were in contact with a couple members of the Lions,” Profili said, adding that there were only a couple of days, too short to round up volunteers to take the old roof off the gazebo.
“It was too late for the Lions to get the old roof off, so we had to hire a contractor to fix the old roof,” he said, but before work was completed the contractor left town again.
The Lions Club then had to put another roof on because the old one was rotting.
“Luckily, the Rotary helped us; the total cost was about $4,500 because the contractor didn’t live up to the commitment that he made to the Lions,” he said, adding that he was pleading with council for two reasons.
“It’s important that we all appreciate the value of local contractors,” he said.
“I’m not saying that going out of town is always a bad thing to do, but local contractors don’t shaft local service clubs and people in town.”
The second thing was that he asked council on behalf of the Lions to send a letter to the contractor expressing their dissatisfaction.
Profili asked that the letter express the dissatisfaction at the added cost to the Lions and failing to live up to their commitments.
“So I’m here to point out what we think is a valuable lesson as to the integrity of local businesses and at the same time ask for your indulgence in passing a motion,” he said.
The subject will be up for discussion at the Feb. 13 council meeting.