WESTLOCK - Westlock County residents will not only get a three-day head start to book sites at the Long Island Lake Municipal Campground, which is slated to open for the year April 29, but won’t face a fee hike.
At their Feb. 22 meeting, county councillors signed off on administration’s plan to begin accepting reservations from county residents at 9 a.m., March 8, while everyone else will have to wait until March 11 to book — call 780-307-0582, e-mail [email protected], or visit the county website or Facebook page for more info. In addition, councillors also agreed to keep fees, which start at $25 per night for campsites and $10 per vehicle for the day-use area, status quo for the coming season.
County community services coordinator Adrienne Finnegan told councillors that traditionally their online booking system opens the first week of April, but due to many other municipalities and provincial parks taking registrations March 1, they need to get going sooner to stay competitive.
She went on to say that despite councillors talking about raising fees during budget deliberations and the hope they would be discussed this spring, she recommended keeping them status quo due to the fact they’re taking registrations early — she further clarified that councillors had discussed day-use fees and talked about increasing charges for people who live outside of Westlock County.
Finnegan went on to note that their online system only tracks inventory and isn’t robust enough to separate out where people are booking from.
“It’s an online management booking system strictly for our inventory. With myself in the department along with the caretaker at the lake just for the summer months it would be impossible for us to manually do the inventory,” Finnegan explained. “We can’t do online bookings for Westlock County residents and manual bookings for non-residents. It would be almost impossible to keep track of and wouldn’t provide a good service.”
And while councillors were fine with keeping the fees status quo, especially considering the early opening, Coun. Stuart Fox-Robinson, whose Zoom connection was unstable throughout the meeting, said day-use fees, specifically in relation to non-county residents, need to be looked at.
“I assure council that we will bring it back for discussion and a review of the fees,” said interim CAO Pat Vincent.
According to stats provided by Finnegan, Long Island Lake operated in the black in 2021, posting revenues of $136,392.19 versus expenses of $117,918.21. In addition, there were 1,767 online booking and 3,084 “items in the inventory system” which included day-use, campsite bookings and tenters. Usage numbers, provided via a map, shows that roughly 239 bookings came from people with Town of Westlock postal codes, while around 200 bookings were from the Edmonton region.
“Going through into the 2022 season, expenses will increase due to the fact that our caretaker will be providing more services because there will be more people at the lake,” Finnegan added.
