A national airport convention that will inject thousands of dollars into the community had its bid for financial assistance denied by a city committee.
The Canadian Airports Electrical Association, a federal non-profit formed to facilitate annual workshops, selected Campbell River to host this year’s event.
The Association applied for a $5,000 grant-in-aid from the city to help with the costs of hosting the workshop which will be held at Painter’s Lodge Sept. 22-27.
But the city’s Community Partnership Committee, which looks over all grant-in-aid requests, recommended council deny the application.
“The committee reviewed CAEA’s (Canadian Airports Electrical Association) application and recommends that the request be denied because the association is not a community organization,” said Barry Watchorn, chair of the committee.
“Council’s Finance Policy states that, ‘the Community Partnership Program is designed to support community groups with the delivery of major events and/or services.’”
The committee acknowledged that the national workshop will provide economic benefits and recommended the association be advised to contact Rivercorp for assistance.
At last week’s Tuesday council meeting, Coun. Mary Storry wasn’t keen on that recommendation.
“Rivercorp has set their budget already and can’t afford this,” said Storry who didn’t want to waste time and have Campbell River miss out on the opportunity to become a sponsor.
Mayor Walter Jakeway said the workshop is a great way to highlight Campbell River and suggested the city dip into its pockets to find the money.
Council voted to deny the request for funding from the grant-in-aid program, but instead decided to give the association the $5,000 from council’s contingency fund.
Coun. Andy Adams agreed with Jakeway that the convention is the type of event the community needs.
“I think this is a great initiative and the type of event we want to come to Campbell River,” Adams said. “The reason I voted against it (as a grant-in-aid) is because I didn’t feel it was in the current community partnership mandate.”
The Canadian Airports Electrical Association expects 70-90 people will attend the workshop as delegates and 25-35 businesses will be at the tradeshow which will be held Wednesday, Sept. 25 at the Community Centre as part of the convention.
Murray Ames, Campbell River Airport Electrician, said having the event come to Campbell River is unique for the association.
“The Campbell River Airport is by far the smallest airport to ever host CANEW (Canadian Airports National Electrical Workshop) as all previous airports have been international airports in larger cities,” Ames said. “Campbell River is also the smallest city to ever host. People attending CANEW will be staying in local hotel rooms, eating at our restaurants, shopping and visiting our tourist attractions. Some will be coming to Campbell River prior to CANEW, others will stay beyond the workshop which will bring additional spending to the community. We see return visits for holidays once the people have seen what we have to offer, especially for coastal locations.”
Ames noted that if the workshop is successful, Campbell River should be added to the rotation for hosting the workshop in future years.
