Festival of Light’s $400,000 request approved by council
City council has approved a $400,000 request from Winter Festival of Lights to support additional offerings by the group, including a new Cascades of Fire international fireworks competition.
The $400,000, which will come out of the city’s casino-hosting reserve fund, is separate from the $342,000 the city allocates to the festival as a fee-for-service out of its operating budget.
Council referred the $400,000 request during its Feb. 27 meeting to its May 8 meeting, where politicians are expected to consider funding certain projects through the reserve fund.
But during Tuesday evening’s meeting, Coun. Wayne Campbell, who did not attend the Feb. 27 session, made a motion to reconsider the festival’s $400,000 request, which was approved.
“It’s been brought to my attention that there is some $800,000 of potential provincial and federal funding that is not going to made available to the Winter Festival of Lights because we have not taken the money from the casino funding and put it solidly behind their operation for this year,” he said.
“I would like to make the motion that we immediately provide
that funding for the Winter Festival of Lights and we move forward.”
Council approved Campbell’s motion, with only Coun. Carolynn Ioannoni in opposition.
Coun. Vince Kerrio declared a conflict and did not vote.
Ioannoni did not speak to the issue Tuesday, but during the Feb. 27 session said while she supports the festival, other groups the city supports have been told not to come to council with a budget increase.
She said she did not have a problem supporting the $342,000, but did not support the additional $400,000, especially as the city continues trying to fund, house and feed homeless people.
Tina Myers, executive director of the festival, updated council Tuesday with recently received economic impact information from its 2017 season.
She said the festival had a $56.4million economic impact last year.
“Just to give you a comparison, in 2014 it was $23.9 million, so each year that the city has supported us through the OLG fund of $300,000 each year, and then this year moving on to also include the Cascades of Fire, we’ve increased that economic impact.”
Myers said the festival attracted 1.6 million visitors in 2017, up from one million in 2014.
“It’s been quite a bit of growth and we only want to continue to grow in the community as a whole.”
She said the festival put in more than 4,600 volunteer hours during the winter months, participated in Canada 150 celebrations, and supported community groups and events such as Heartland Forest, Project SHARE and Community Clean Sweep.
Coun. Mike Strange said the festival also supported local children battling health issues.
Coun. Kim Craitor said he supports the $400,000 request because the money is coming from the city’s casino-hosting reserve fund, which is partially dedicated to economic development.
“I’m supporting this … because I do believe that economic development is a good investment. The Winter Festival of Lights falls into economic development, in my opinion,” he said.