The EFCL is looking forward to the creation of a new tripartite license agreement that governs the way community leagues are able to use city land and the facilities the leagues have constructed.

The existing lease, which is due to expire later this year, generated a good deal of controversy when it was introduced in the late 1990s. Approximately a dozen leagues refused to sign it.

“We have been working hard on this,” noted EFCL president David Gibbens,“ And we very much look forward to the creation of an agreement that all parties can support.”

“We think we’ve got a pretty good handle on the issues of the leagues. It’s now time to sit down with the city and try to hammer something out that we can all agree to.”

Five people have offered to sit on the EFCL’s negotiating committee. They are Gibbens, EFCL directors David Dodge and Christine Bremner, along with Area Councils of Edmonton (ACES) president Dwayne Robertson and Area Council 17 representative Mike White. ACES and a number of community leagues in Area Council 17 have consistently raised concerns about the existing license agreement. The EFCL felt it was essential to understand these objections and have representatives of these groups at the table if we were ever going to develop an agreement all parties could support.

This committee has met and identified a number of issues it would like to address in the upcoming discussions. Chief among them is the ownership of community league facilities and the degree to which leagues control their usage.