City doling out big bucks

By BOB BRUTON BARRIE EXAMINER November 27 2010
Christmas could come early for four city groups Monday.
Barrie councillors will consider handing out almost $98,000 in funding in their last meeting of this new term. The new city council will be sworn in Dec. 6.
Hospice Simcoe could receive $58,469, Habitat for Humanity $27,366, Talk is Free Theatre $10,000 and the Easter Seals Society $2,000.
Coun. Jeff Lehman, soon to be Barrie’s new mayor, said the Hospice, Habitat and Easter Seals funding requests all came to council some time ago.
“Waiting for the new council would mean half of the (council) members would not have any familiarity with the requests, or the projects they relate to,” he said.
Lehman said Hospice Simcoe made a presentation to council-l ors nearly two years ago, requesting support. Habitat and Easter Seals made their requests earlier this year.
“All three requests are for funds to rebate fees that these charities had to pay to the city,” he said.
“I don’t know that there’s a major time constraint, except that each of these organizations are struggling to deliver their projects and services in part because of city fees.”
The Easter Seals funding would offset the cost of city facility rentals and the Hospice Simcoe money is to offset development charges paid to the city (50%) for its new facilities. The Habitat funding is also to offset development charges.
Talk is Free Theatre has asked the city to contribute $10,000 toward the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) conference in Barrie on May 24-29, 2011.
Talk Is Free Theatre is the successful bidder for the conference for artistic directors, general managers and other executive staff of Canadian theatres which employ union actors, on behalf of PACT.
It’s expected to attract 175 delegates, cost $75,525 to put on and generate total revenues of $131,875. PACT officials are being asked to provide a letter to city council, outlining how this grant will be used to benefit the community.
Coun. Barry Ward said when this request came to the city, he asked staff to contact Arkady Spivak — TIFT’s artistic producer — about applying through the community grants program in 2011.
“Since then, I’ve learned the conference organizers needed a commitment before those grants are likely to be made,” Ward said. “Asking council directly to approve the grant, from the money set aside for 2010, seemed like the best alternative.”
He said the new council’s inaugural Dec. 6 meeting is largely ceremonial, and the Dec. 13 deals with committee appointments the following week. There are no council or general committee meetings scheduled Dec. 20 and 27.
“I didn’t think we could wait until January to deal with this request,” Ward said. “As well, I hope the city has its grants programs set up soon so we, as a council, don’t have to deal with these kind of requests in 2011.
“The whole idea behind the community grants program, with an arms-length judging body, was to take these kind of decisions out of council hands.”
Lehman said it’s the correct funding source for Easter Seals, Hospice and Habitat.
“The 2010 community fund was established to support worthy projects this year and these funds are all in the approved 2010 budget so it is not new spending,” he said. “The decision is only whether to allocate them to these charitable requests.”
bbruton@thebarrieexaminer.com
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On council’s agenda
Mayor Dave Aspden and couns. Mike Ramsay, Rod Jackson, Jerry Moore and Andrew Prince will receive Council Service Awards. Aspden and Ramsay ran unsuccessfully for mayor, Jackson and Prince were defeated in their respective wards and Moore chose not to run for re-election. The new city council, and mayor-elect Jeff Lehman, will be sworn in Dec. 6.
Jon Babulic, Barrie’s chief administrative officer, will make a presentation to city councillors about the 2010 third quarter report.
Councillors will consider appointing Debbie Kerr as tenant representative to the Barrie Non-Profit Housing Corporation board of directors for a three-year term, to expire at the 2013 annual general meeting