At the recent City Council meeting, Mayor Roy Ludwig read two letters, from the RM of Browning and the Town of Lampman written by the administrator, Greg Wallin in support of the decommissioning of the Civic Auditorium. 

"It's not that we don't want to see another rink in the City of Estevan," Wallin said. "But with the declining use of these facilities, there are so many bordering communities to the City that have rinks that could be utilized that aren't being utilized. It might be an opportune time to work together to have them utilized."

Communities like Torquay, Midale, and Bienfait have all been used for ice surfaces during the hockey season. 

"As communities, we understand that the City of Estevan and the RM of Estevan put in a lot of money to have three rinks in one city."

The letter stated that it was their original intention to support Affinity Place with the plan that it would replace the Civic. 

"We understood when we allotted our grant money to the City of Estevan to build Affinity Place, we understood that Affinity Place would replace one of the rinks in Estevan, not add to it. And therefore, that would help out all the surrounding communities. We're not just looking at our community, we're looking at everywhere."

"All the communities have to work together as one big community to make everything feasible."

"We would sooner see the City of Estevan utilize the surrounding facilities and maybe put some funding into some sort of recreation that the City of Estevan currently does not have."

The City of Estevan shut down the Civic Auditorium on November 7th, 2017 after it was deemed unsafe by engineers.