New blood for Peterborough DBIA board
The DBIA elected a new board of management on Wednesday evening.
At the annual general meeting for the DBIA at Showplace, there were 16 candidates vying for eight spots on the board.
Although the board selection must be ratified by city council, DBIA members chose the following members:
• Michael Cherney of Cherney Properties
• Michael Gallant of Lett Architects
• Paul Bennett of Ashburnham Realty
• Tegan Moss of B!KE: The Community Cycling Hub
• Sam Sayer of Sam’s Place
• Jean Grant of The Toy Shop Peterborough
• Brad Collyer of Grant Thornton
• Sacha Lai-Svirk of BrandHealth.
Coun. Diane Therrien is also a board member – but she’s appointed by city council and her term expires in fall.
She’s running for mayor in the Oct. 22 municipal election.
The DBIA’s new board members begin their four-year terms Oct. 1.
Paul Bennett – who was reelected by DBIA members – took over as chairman of the board in April.
He replaced board chairman Dave Madill in spring, who stepped down after 12 years on the board (he’d been chairman since 2011).
Brad Collyer, treasurer for the DBIA board, spoke to members on Wednesday evening about the board’s finances.
The DBIA has begun to receive $150,000 a year to make up for the fact that council didn’t consider the downtown as a potential location for the casino (the building is under construction now on Crawford Dr.).
To make up for the loss of business downtown, the city is compensating the DBIA; in exchange, the DBIA dropped its appeal before the Ontario Municipal Board over the casino location.
Those $150,000 payments began in 2018 and will continue for 20 years. The settlement money comes in addition to levies and city funding for street-cleaning and in-kind services.
Collyer told DBIA members on Wednesday that the money will be critical to the downtown as soon as the Shorelines Casino Peterborough opens sometime in September.
“There’s going to be harm done to the downtown when that casino opens,” he said.
Collyer also outlined how the board may want to spend that $150,000 in 2019: increased security through the new One City program, for example, a new mural and perhaps a new website and new holiday lights.
One City is a pilot program launched in late May.
Over the next four months, 12 homeless and marginalized people will be offered jobs cleaning .
The initiative has two teams: one going through the downtown with trolleys to clean up areas not touched by city or private cleaners, and another of two outreach workers to assist marginalized people on the street.