City council agrees to build elevator for waterslide at new Wascana Pool

Regina city council unanimously agreed Wednesday to add an elevator to the waterslide at the new Wascana Pool.

The elevator will cost an additional $555,000.

Mayor Sandra Masters and Coun. Jason Mancinelli were away for the vote. The final tally was 9-0.

Coun. Terina Nelson said she greatly appreciated the feedback of accessibility advocates who spoke at the meeting.

“You don’t know that you need an elevator … to get to a waterslide until (you’ve) carried your child up the stairs crying because you’re so bloody tired but she wants to go again,” Nelson said.

One week earlier, the city’s executive committee had voted unanimously in favour of the elevator to make the waterslides more accessible.

Appearing on last Thursday’s Greg Morgan Morning Show, Masters said Nelson had been relentless on making sure the pool was 100 per cent accessible.

“Administration did a phenomenal job. This is the most accessible pool in (the) city. It was just missing access into the high waterslide,” Masters said. “It wasn’t considered at the time just, frankly, because they were looking at every other element and it’ll be the first (one) in Canada actually.”

Masters said at the time the city has $500,000 budgeted for adaptive reuse every year.

“We’re going to use two or three years worth of that money to pay for the elevator,” she said.