Shawano County and Shawano Hockey League officials are trying to hammer out a list of repair priorities at the Crawford Center in Shawano, the hockey league’s home ice rink.
The repairs are for broken and damaged items in the building, noted when Nick Hesse, the county’s facilities management director, went through the building earlier this year.
Black marks on the walls, dented garage doors and damaged service doors were highlighted. Initial estimates put the cost for the repairs around $63,000.
Jim Davel, the county’s administrative coordinator, told the public property committee June 12 that he and Hesse recently met Adam Gafner, president of the hockey league, and others to discuss the repairs.
“The damage was discussed, and obviously being a volunteer organization, they can’t necessarily pay for everything right away,” Davel said. “So what we discussed was coming up with a prioritized list to work off.”
He said the league recently used donated funds to purchase a new chiller and Zamboni.
“Their donated funds for that are pretty much spent,” Davel said. “What I would recommend is we go forward with signing the agreement (a new rental lease) … and then we work the prioritized list of when and what things are going to be worked off as we go along.”
He also said both sides agreed there needed to be better communication going forward. Davel said the hockey league offered to help attract other users during the offseason.
“We got the temperature toned down, which I thought was important,” Davel said.
Not all supervisors were so quick to settle.
“The 60 days we gave them two meetings ago, that was basically thrown out then?” Allan Kuhn asked.
Kuhn was referring to the committee’s meeting in April when members voted unanimously to have the hockey league complete and pay for a set of repairs within 60 days. Those fixes included having the 16-by-20-foot garage door cleaned to remove black marks, and a smaller garage door replaced. All walls would be repainted, and touch-up work would be done in the bathrooms. Stainless steel was to be put on the entry doors by the county. It was noted Dearco will donate the paint, with the painting being done by Lakeview Revival.
Davel accepted the blame for not enforcing that motion.
“The reality is they’re not going to be able to do all this at one time,” he said. “They don’t have the money to do that.”
“If they had taken care of it in the first place, they wouldn’t have to worry about coming up with the money to fix it,” Supervisor Randy Young said.
Keith Herm, the county’s lead maintenance technician, said significant turnover within the leadership of the hockey league in the past four or five years has caused several issues, including a lack of communication with the county.
Davel said there needs to be some give-and-take with these repairs going forward.
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Negotiations continue between county, hockey league
