Waterfront Trust ‘red flags’ irk Skelly
Councillor wants answers from agency about owed taxes
COUNCIL HAS ASKED THE Hamilton Waterfront Trust to attend an upcoming meeting to talk about its finances with the city. Coun. Donna Skelly put forward a motion Friday arguing she wants the arm’s-length agency to provide councillors with its audited financial statements from 2012-16.
Skelly also wants the trust to answer questions about the more than $300,000 in property taxes it owes the city and the unannounced annulment of its charitable status at an upcoming general issues committee meeting.
“Those are certainly red flags,” she told The Spectator.
Recent stories in the media “raising con-
cerns about transparency” as well as a motion from the trust brought forward at Friday’s council meeting — noting it has agreed to “manage the redevelopment” of Piers 5 to 7 — prompted the action, Skelly said.
“That concerns me,” she said. “I want to know, what is it about the trust that we deem that they have such specialized expertise?
“Why can’t our own staff do this?”
On Friday, the waterfront trust formally notified city council it restructured into two organizations a year and a half ago.
The trust began operating as the not-for-profit Hamilton Waterfront Trust and a corporation called HWT Inc. — after Canada Revenue Agency annulled its charity status in November 2016 because the work it does is not “exclusively charitable.”
The agency, whose mandate is helping Hamiltonians connect with its waterfront, also sought permission Friday to reorganize its board to eliminate a Hamilton Port Authority position.
That request was referred to the city’s governance review subcommittee.
Councillors Tom Jackson and Jason Farr, who both sit on the trust’s board, spoke against Skelly’s motion.
Farr dismissed recent news stories about the agency as part of a “slow news summer” and stressed the organization has “nothing to hide.”
But other councillors suggested a public update would be helpful.
Coun. Terry Whitehead, who supported Skelly’s motion, said he is eager to give the trust a chance to clarify the “narrative” being presented.
“I think we owe it to the community to provide clarity as a result of the questions being helpfully raised by media outlets,” he said after Friday’s meeting.
“I think the media has done their job. “Now we need to do ours.” Whitehead said he supports the waterfront trust as an arms-length agency, noting it is “clearly providing their service at a reduced cost to the taxpayers of this community.”
“If we take it over … it’s been strongly suggested that that cost could go up by at least two times (while) providing the same level of service,” he added.
Coun. Matthew Green said if councillors are “dancing around the idea of making it public,” a report should be brought forward that spells out the details about what each option would mean.
Green stressed it is council’s job to provide oversight to all boards and agencies.
“I never shy away or wouldn’t ask my colleagues to shy away from asking difficult questions,” he said. “There are no sacred cows.”
The trust was created in 2000 to settle long-standing issues about the waterfront that existed between the city, the federal government and the former Hamilton Harbour Commission.
It has developed amenities such as the two popular waterfront trails, one in the west end of the harbour and the other along the beach strip.
While it began its life with a $6.3million endowment from a lawsuit settled with the federal government, the trust now mainly subsists on revenue from waterfront businesses and project contracts from other levels of government.