{"id":24174,"date":"2019-07-04T18:11:18","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24174"},"modified":"2019-07-04T18:11:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:11:27","slug":"grant-for-food-and-culture-festival-sparks-council-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/grant-for-food-and-culture-festival-sparks-council-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant for food and culture festival sparks Council debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\nBrock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A last minute request for $5,000 in public\ndollars to support an incoming Food & Culture Festival this September\nsparked Council debate last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At issue was an amendment by Councillor\nHarold Kim to his motion to establish the Aurora Food & Culture Festival\nthis fall, an amendment which asked Council to approve funding to an upset\nlimit of $5,000 from Council Contingency funds to event organizers Sports\nHorizons Inc. for the operation of the event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The $5,000 would be for \u201cmarketing\npurposes,\u201d said Councillor Kim, but this request at the eleventh hour raised a\nfew eyebrows amongst his colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Rachel Gilliland led the\nquestioning, wondering if Councillor Kim was \u201cconfident\u201d $5,000 will help make\nthe event a success. Councillor John Gallo, on the other hand, approached the\nissue from a different angle, objecting not to the Festival itself, but the\ntiming of Councillor Kim\u2019s amendment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am a big promoter of food and culture\nand the value that brings to a community and I was in support of this motion up\nto the amendment,\u201d he said. \u201cI am quite surprised this is the first time we\u2019re\nhearing of an ask for any funding. I have literally minutes to decide whether\nto spend $5,000 of taxpayer money on this with virtually no plan in front of\nme. My comfort level for that is not very high. While I can appreciate what\u2019s\nbeing done and I value it\u2026I will not be supporting the amendment because I do not\nhave a plan in front of me. I have no idea other than what Councillor Kim just\nsaid [of] how the $5,000 will be spent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHad I had known beforehand, had something\nbeen brought to our attention beforehand, I probably would have considered it.\nTo me, this is something that needs a little bit more planning, perhaps for\nnext year, and a stronger rationale for spending that kind of money at the\nninth hour, at a Council meeting, in an amendment. However, should the motion\nbe moved [without the amendment] I am in full support of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Replied Councillor Kim: \u201cThere will be\nfull reporting. When any organization I am involved with is spending taxpayer\nmoney, there will be full accountability and full detail in terms of where the\nmoney is being spent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debate, however, continued after Council\nvoted 5 \u2013 2 in favour of the amendment, with Councillors Gallo and Wendy\nGaertner among the opposition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Kim said he \u201cunderstood\u201d that\nprocess was important, but \u201cwhat\u2019s more important than process is what\u2019s good\nfor the end customers\u201d \u2013 in this case, the residents, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven the tight timelines we were given [from February to March] to have another country get involved and say, \u2018We want to spend tens of thousands of dollars into your municipality.\u2019 It is not Richmond Hill with a population of 200,000 or Vaughan, it is Aurora. They are going to bring their master chef, award-winning jazz musicians, dancers, out of their own pocket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leverage, he added, was a key\nconsideration and cited recent Council decisions to grant the Aurora Cultural\nCentre thousands for their new Kaleidoscope project will take their programming\ninto local schools, as an example of a late-in-the-game funding request. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a $5,000 grant, there will be \u201ctens of\nthousands\u201d of dollars worth of free cultural exposure with Barbados \u201ctaking a\nrisk on your municipality with a big heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo say there is no detailed budget, that\nit is not following a certain process, I think from a pragmatic perspective I\ndon\u2019t understand why that question is being brought up,\u201d said Councillor Kim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Councillor Gaertner had more\nquestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is not that I don\u2019t share Councillor\nKim\u2019s enthusiasm, but it has taken a long time to get these [funding request]\nprocesses in place and to get Councils to follow them,\u201d she said. \u201cProcess is\nwhat is good for our community and our taxpayers and, to me, anyway, it is very\nimportant that we follow process. I will have to vote against it because of\nthat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t pick and choose. You follow the\nprocess for the long-term benefit of the taxpayer and it doesn\u2019t matter if it\nis $1,000 or $5,000 or more, I think it is wrong that we don\u2019t follow the\nprocess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These Council members were in the\nminority, with others offering their enthusiasm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Sandra Humfryes, for instance,\nsaid it was a good investment on behalf of residents, while Councillor Rachel\nGilliland said a festival such as this would go towards bringing Aurora\u2019s east\nand west sides together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think this is something the community\ncan really, really benefit from,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Councillor Michael Thompson said he\nwas \u201cconcerned\u201d that some of the financial details weren\u2019t before Council, he\nwas prepared to put his trust in Councillor Kim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do have [tremendous respect] for\nCouncillor Kim, he\u2019s on the committee, and I believe he will provide all\nmembers of Council with the information we seek prior to the event happening,\u201d\nsaid Councillor Thompson. \u201cI trust in him he will ensure the money is put to\ngood use and will be ever-mindful that at the end of the day it is taxpayers\u2019\ndollars. I am giving him a lot of latitude in doing so, but I trust he will\ncome back with that budgetary report and fulfil some of those concerns prior to\nthe event happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Mayor Mrakas: \u201cThis $5,000 is near\nnothing compared to the return we will get, the people that will come to our\ncommunity for this event will, in turn, come back and return, visit our\nrestaurants, visit our shops, shop around Town, start to become part of the\ncommunity and see the great community we are. This is an excellent opportunity\nfor our Town to do something incredible for our residents and do something\nincredible. I think it is a great use of taxpayers dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Near the end of the debate, Councillor\nGallo summed up his feelings by saying he was \u201chopeful it will be true.\nUnfortunately, they are just words into a microphone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have nothing to rely on,\u201d he concluded. \u201cHad there been something\nsent to us, some type of memo report, something that could have been shared\nwith us with all of those details, wonderful. But I would love to support this,\nbut I have nothing to rely on other than a last-minute request to spend $5,000\nof taxpayer money I have no plan for.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir A last minute request for $5,000 in public dollars to support an incoming Food & Culture Festival this September sparked Council debate last week. At issue was an amendment by Councillor Harold Kim to his motion to establish the Aurora Food & Culture Festival this fall, an amendment which asked Council to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6hU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 14:33:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}