Addington Highlands to inherit the Kaladar Community Hall, whether it wants to or not

Jeff Green | Oct 17, 2019

The Kaladar Community Club will be shuttering the Kaladar Community Centre at the end of October. And after doing some due diligence, cleaning out some of the contents of the hall, shutting off the water and shutting down the furnace, they will be bringing the keys to the township office in Flinton and handing them to the township.

“We made a presentation to council on September 17 outlining our financial shortfall and asking the township to provide support for us to keep the hall going but they decided not to,” said Penny Hinchey, the treasurer of the Kaladar Community Club. This shouldn’t be a surprise.”

The township owns and maintains the Denbigh Hall, the Addington Highlands Community Centre (Denbigh) which is the former Denbigh Public School, and the Addington Highlands Community Centre (Flinton) where the township office is located.

Hinchey knows the Community Centre well. She went to school there before it closed and was converted for community use. She said that she is not sure of the total, but the shortfall to keep the hall operating is under $10,000 per year.

“It will cost the township more if they decide to keep it open,” she said.

The community centre houses a second hand store that will need to find a new home at the end of the month. In the past the Land O’Lakes Tourist Association was a tenant, and there was a youth centre in the basement as well as a scamp camp in the summer.

The centre also has a mural painted on the west facing wall, featuring Terry Fox, who passed through Kaladar when he was running across Canada.

In recent years, maintenance and capital costs have escalated, due in part, to new provincial water regulations and other new requirements.

One of the last straws is an order by the KFL&A Public Health that a new filtration system be installed.

“We put them off for a long time about that, but eventually they had to make an order. We just can’t cover that extra cost,” Hinchey said.

The Community Club received and grant of $5,500 from the Lennox and Addington Community Fund earlier this year for a new furnace, but knowing they cannot keep going the community club did not buy a furnace and will be returning the grant money next week.

“It is sad that this is happening but we can’t keep struggling to raise money just to keep falling further behind,” Hinchey said.