One resident asked about the field house being air conditioned.  Replied Mr. Fryeberg, "The actual arena is not air conditioned.  It'll be cold six months out of the year.  It'll be 75 degrees when it's 95 degrees outside.  The cement floor takes a while for the coldness to leave it. The rest of the facility is air conditioned."
Another resident asked if other sites were considered for the field house.  Stat-ed Mayor Mary, "This is the park where we'd planned to put these facilities for the houses that were coming in."  She added that the city has done a lot of acquiring of property, including a large purchase for $425,000 down County Road #43.  "We thought it was a wise move to have that available."
There was a question about esthetics.  Stated Mr. Fryeberg, "We're not going to put up an ugly building.  You'll make this park be a vibrant part of the community year 'round.  It' a large building.  It's 32 feet high and awfully long.  It's buried into the ground 6 feet.  Most of it will be hidden behind existing buildings, when you're driving down Kochia."
A resident asked about Victoria working with Waconia to build an ice arena to suit both cities.  Replied the mayor, "Waconia was not interested for five years.  And Chaska has their contract with their Community Center."
Another resident asked, "How did you decide an ice arena versus a swim-ming pool or library?"  Stated Council-member Tieden, "The ice brings in a very large revenue that makes it available for the rest of the activities."
A resident asked Parks & Rec Direc-tor Mary Saarion for her opinion on the project.  She replied, "Just about all the recreational revenue facilities run with subsidies.  It is the responsibility of the community to decide the value of recrea-tional pursuits.  That's what the council and city are trying to do, determine the cost and what the city wants."

ENDORSING THE VICTORIA FIELD HOUSE
"LOOKS TO ME LIKE A REALLY GOOD IDEA"
Regarding the entire issue of the Vic-toria Field House, and the length of time it has been considered and discussed and approved and now questioned, resident Tom Stumpf spoke to councilmembers and other residents on February 7th.

"I've been a resident of Victoria for six or eight years now," he said.  "I'm a little bit concerned that the city has been making this entire thing public for a long time now, and up until the 3 to 2 vote in December, we trusted the government of this city to the council people and mayor, and I didn't hear any negative feedback on this arena from anybody until that point."
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I read in the Gazette that the two dissenting voters on the council shook hands and basically agreed to disagree.  It sounded like they were going to throw their sup-port toward this thing."
Tom spoke of his two sons attending school in District #112; one is a sopho-more and the other an eighth grader, and they both play hockey.
"As a city resident," he continued, "this looks to me like a really good idea.  We're going to have to accept the fact that Victoria isn't going to be this little hole in the wall for very long.  We have to decide if we're going to be in favor of projects that will help us progress a little bit."
"Everybody that I talk to, that I come in contact with, is in favor of this.  I'm not saying I know everybody, but this project seems like a great idea and I don't under-stand the objections."

A PUBLIC HEARING ON MARCH 14TH
VICTORIA RESIDENTS INVITED TO ATTEND
According to City Administrator Steve Sarvi, the City of Victoria will receive a report on Thursday, March 14th, that will outline the types of financing that the city's financial consultant, Paul Donna of Juran and Moody, believes Victoria should use to fund the field house project.
"Hopefully we'll also have the most recent feasibility study by Sprinsted com-pleted and ready to present to the council," said Steve.  "Paul Donna will get up and present a couple of possible scenarios of how the field house can be financed.  He'll give the options."
"Springsted will say here's what we think is feasible for the field house for revenue, expenditures, operations, ... and we'll plug in the debt service numbers from Paul, the number that we'll have to pay annually to repay the bonds, and that will tell us if it's feasible."
Residents are invited to attend this public forum as they are invited to attend all council meetings, to hear if the Victoria Field House project is feasible and how it'll play out.
Administrator Sarvi said that if the project is once again shown to be feasible, construction could start in May and the field house could be open in mid October.

MIGHTY DUCKS GRANT AVAILABLE
CITY OF VICTORIA WILL APPLY FOR IT
Parks and Rec Director Mary Saarion informed councilmembers on February 14th that there was a $250,000 Mighty Ducks grant available, and that grant applications are due by March 15th, 2002.
She reported that grant criteria calls for construction of an ice arena to be com-pleted by 2003.  "They prefer more than one ice sheet and coordinating with other entities," she said, "but we're far ahead on all the other criteria, but who knows what the other competition will do."
Mayor Mary Meuwissen made a motion that Director Saarion "do every-thing to get the  grant."  The motion passed 4-0.  Added the mayor, "Gosh, things are looking good!"  To the Parks and Rec Director she stated, "If you need a ride to deliver that Mighty Ducks appli-cation, I'll drive you down there.  Give me a call."
According to the Request for Propo-sal on this grant, its purpose is to assist Minnesota communities in developing and renovating ice arenas.  Purpose of the ice centers is to maximize the community's ability to generate economic benefits and to promote ice sports participation for both females and males.
Another goal of the grant is to en-courage ice arenas that serve sport and non-sport needs and ensure that non-hockey groups will also have adequate access to the arenas.

Click here to continue March City Scoop.