City of Powell River Mayor Dave Formosa has apologized to residents for the staff decision not to hold Canada Day celebrations this year.
“Citizens, I’m sorry,” he said.
The apology came during a discussion about reductions to the parks, recreation and culture department’s 2012 budget at a special council meeting held on July 12.
Bill Reid, director of parks, recreation and culture, presented a report that outlined the impact of budget cuts, staffing levels and daily priorities.
One of the issues he addressed was the decision not to have Canada Day celebrations.
Patti Coburn, recreation program coordinator, applied for a $3,000 grant from the federal government’s Celebrate Canada program. The city was informed at the beginning of June that $2,000 had been approved.
Reid said that was “very late in the year.” Other reasons he gave included the fact that more and more entertainers wanted to be paid to perform at events, Canada Day fell in the middle of a long weekend and staff thought attendance would be low and there were other events happening, such as the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific, International Choral Kathaumixw, BC Bike Race and Pulling Together. “With all those other events happening, we just decided not to do that,” he said. “In hindsight, maybe we should have proceeded with it, regardless, and attempted to provide something for the community.”
Marie Claxton, acting chief administrative officer, said she was concerned with the lack of communication with council that staff was even considering cancelling the event. “Because Canada Day is a public event and people have an expectation that it’s going to happen because we have been doing it for so many years, I think that there should have been communication to council through proper channels,” she said.
Reid had sent an email on June 12 with an attachment from Coburn about the decision not to have Canada Day celebrations. Most of council, including Formosa, did not see the attachment. “Had I seen it, there would have been Canada Day, I guarantee it,” Formosa said. “We missed it. Shame on us.”
The discussion led to a consensus that the city should seek partners, including Powell River Regional District and community organizations, for a bigger and better event next year.
“I really like the idea of a regional celebration, using local organizations that might be interested in participating with us, so it really becomes a big celebration,” said Councillor Myrna Leishman. “It sounds like there are some in the community who are interested and this is our opportunity to try and pull that together.”
Councillors also had a lengthy discussion about whether to direct staff to find funds for additional parks staff.
This year, the department has hired one worker from the end of May to the end of October. Last year, the department had two workers during the summer and the year before it had three. Reid said there are days when the department only has two or three staff due to sickness or holidays. He explained to council that the department has been tasked with more work, due to the waterfront development projects and the new track at
Timberlane Park.
Some maintenance has fallen off and the city has received complaints from residents about unsightly areas.
Some councillors wanted to ask staff to find funding for additional summer staff for the department. Other councillors thought staff had to live within budget and it was up to managers to manage their departments in the “new reality.”
After a complex procedural process that included a motion, an amendment to the motion, a second motion and a point-of-order challenge to the second motion, council agreed to leave the issue up to staff to manage.
Formosa summed up the issue, saying it was a learning process in starting to cut budgets. “The community wanted us to cut, we wanted to cut, we know our tax revenues are going down, our costs are going up, so we need to be more prudent,” he said. “These are the growing pains.”
