Excessive red tape blamed for growing volunteer burnout
It’s not the project, ‘it’s the paperwork,’ community league members tell council
Edmonton’s approval process for neighbourhood tennis courts, gardens and other amenities is so frustrating it burns out earnest volunteers, community league members told city councillors Monday.
“The project itself is not the hard part ... It’s the paperwork,” said Lori Kraus, after the Grandview Heights Community League struggled to refinish its tennis courts and build a facility for beach volleyball.
“The burden on our volunteers is overwhelming,” said Jens Deppe, who saw a simple attempt to build a community garden take six years for the Allendale Community League.
The comments came during council’s first community services committee meeting of the term as councillors reviewed a matching
grant system from the city for community leagues.
Deppe said each time the group met with the city, they were forced to get more information and justify the project again.
Staff would ask question after question without offering solutions or sharing best practices.
At one point, city officials forced the group to delay for a year to test the ground under asphalt they wanted to remove for the garden, he said. They spent $4,000 to do that, but the following year new city staff said that actually wasn’t necessary because the group planned to use raised beds.
Edmonton’s community leagues are important for building and maintaining neighbourhood amenities, but the city is causing headaches for — rather than supporting — the small number of volunteers in each community, Deppe said. “It’s a system that’s highly lauded, but it’s crumbling before our eyes.”
Council members expressed concern.
“The project chart looks a bit like a labyrinth,” said Coun. Michael Walters.
Coun. Mike Nickel added, “I have community leagues who hire professional grant writers to navigate the system.”
City manager Linda Cochrane said the issue was that several community league projects ballooned larger than expected in the past. That led to the new oversight system.
“We might have overcompensated,” she said.
“We wanted to make sure we wouldn’t get burnt again.”
Committee voted for officials to write a report on how it would organize a working group with community leagues to solve the issues.
That report is due back in February, with the working group to follow.
“I want to ... make sure the right people are in the room,” said Walters, whose inquiry started the discussion.
Coun. Tony Caterina pushed the city to re-consider its policy against allowing corporations or other organizations to include logos in items associated with a project where they provide sponsorship funding.
That’s been a barrier for community groups trying to raise funds.
Cochrane said that doesn’t “seem unreasonable” and promised to report back. It would mean revising the city’s parkland bylaw.