Like many municipalities across Alberta, the City of Lethbridge is scrambling to understand changes to stage two of the province’s relaunch plan.
Officials say they only found out Tuesday afternoon when the Premier made the announcement and are working to understand the details and guidelines associated with re-opening.
Fire Chief Marc Rathwell, the City’s Director of Emergency Management says as this time there are no hard dates for reopening facilities here. “We are excited to see these changes but we also want to manage the community’s expectations. Even though we can open some facilities, it will be in a limited capacity, and only when we think it is safe to do so.”
Rathwell says although the have the green light to start doing so this Friday a lot of work needs to take place in order for that to happen. He stresses the City wants to ensure residents that officials are working quickly to reopen things in the safest, most efficient way possible.
The City is working closely with the partner organizations operating City-owned facilities to understand the details and guidelines associated with re-opening as well as the feasibility of doing that.
Aquatic sports, diving, lane swimming, swimming camps, swimming lessons, drop-in, leisure aquatic features (such as lazy rivers, water slides and wave pools) and public swimming are now permitted to resume in Stage 2.
“As with each stage of our relaunch, we know the community has many questions. Unfortunately, we don’t have hard dates at this time for re-opening, but as soon as we can get the resources in place, we will provide more information to our community,” says Rathwell.
(With files from City of Lethbridge)