Grand Forks council awards grants-in-aid to community groups
By Mona Mattei
Sixteen community organizations became the recipients of grant-in-aid awards totaling $62,750 at the last Grand Forks City Council meeting. The grants were awarded based on applications received by council by the deadline of Mar. 31 and were reviewed by Councillor Christine Thompson for recommended action.
The previous council had eliminated the grant-in-aid program and the current council reversed that decision in March of 2009 when they adopted a grant-in-aid policy. With the adoption of the city’s 2010 financial plan, a budget of $75,000 was made available for community groups. The call to groups was made in March and the applications were then reviewed by Thompson.
“I was tasked with reviewing the applications that were received from the various organizations. The resolution I put forward does not expend the entire $75,000 budget. (This allows) council to go out with a second offering in the fall,” explained Thompson.
There was some discussion about particular requests prior to the final vote. Councillor Joy Davies questioned the commitment to the Phoenix Ski Hill Society.
“My only concern is the amount to the Phoenix Ski society. Yes, it benefits a lot of our community but it is sports, it’s outside our boundary and $10,000 is a huge amount of money,” said Davies.
Mayor Brian Taylor responded that the amount of $10,000 for the ski hill has been the level of participation by the city for a number of years. The city chose to move the item from an annual budget item to the grant-in-aid process this year. Councillor Chris Moslin advised that the ski hill has been making a number of capital improvements in the last couple of years and that this money will be applied to future capital works.
Davies also argued that many organizations cannot wait until fall for a second offering and that council should decide on distributing all funds right away. Taylor made it clear that a possible second offering of grants later in the year would need to be a decision of council to be made at a later date.
Council agreed to approve the grants based on Thompson’s recommendation with a friendly amendment to include the Boundary Horse Association’s request for support and a list of requests from others that did not submit applications. A second motion was necessary to approve the request from the Boundary Restorative Justice Program as Thompson was unable to vote on the grant as she was potentially in conflict of interest.
The following grants were provided:
- Air Cadet League of Canada Boundary Committee $3,000;
- Boundary Horse Association $5,000;
- Boundary Restorative Justice Program $500;
- Grand Forks and Boundary Regional Agricultural Society $4,700;
- Grand Forks Senior Citizens Branch 68 $5,000;
- Perley Parent Advisory Council $1,000;
- Boundary District Arts Council $4,500;
- Boundary Museum Society $13,800;
- Grand Forks International Baseball Society $10,000;
- Grand Forks Community Trails Society $1,700;
- Phoenix Mountain Alpine Ski Society $10,000.
- Others who did not submit an application: Border Bruins $1,000; Legion Poppy Fund $100; Canada Day $700; Grand Forks Senior Secondary scholarship $1,000; and B.C. Senior Games Sponsorship $750.
