The City has completed their $50,000 operational review for the Lloydminster Golf and Curling Centre (LGCC).
The review looked at the existing structure of the Lloydminster Facilities Corporations (LFC), which owns the LGCC, as well as the policies and systems of the corporation. Mayor Gerald Aalbers says the review was done to clear up any questions around the corporation.
“For a long time, people have said well do we need to have a separate corporation that’s what this review brought forward and it gave us some recommendations. I think that having it come into the City has its benefits.”
One of the main issues Council discussed on Monday was whether or not the City should be running a restaurant at the LGCC. City Councillor Jonathan Torresan says there are a lot of different options in terms of what the City can do with the restaurant.
“Whether the City can make some changes so that it’s not exactly competing and not providing the same level of service that a normal restaurant would. A lot of those adjustments are options that we could take where we don’t necessarily have to outright close, contract out to a third party, we don’t have to keep it the way it is either.”
The review found the total food costs for the restaurant in 2016 was 46 per cent, whereas the industry benchmark is 35 per cent. Beverage costs were 15 per cent above industry norms as well. Torresan says the benchmarks of what the restaurant should be running at are big concerns for him.
Several recommendations have also been presented in the review around staffing, operations, customer services and management. Aalbers says they will be looking at and working on next steps.
“We’re going to engage the golf and curling centre staff because it affects them mainly. We need to sit down with the board of directors because there is a board of directors made up of City staff and member of City Council.”
Aalbers adds the City will also be looking at making the recommendations a reality in the shortest time frame proposed by the consultant, which is within six months.