North Okanagan Minor Hockey will receive some funding from Spallumcheen to help with hosting the B.C. Tier 4 Pee Wee hockey championships in Armstrong and Enderby March 13 to 16.
The association had asked for $1,500 to help offset the costs of ice rental at the Nor-Val Sports Centre.
Council considered the full amount coming from a grant-in-aid request, but the organization would not get the money before the tournament.
Instead, council unanimously passed a $500 contribution as an “extraordinary community function.”
“The only thing we have to be careful of, it really isn’t the role of our taxpayers in the municipality to be funding things like this,” said Mayor Janice Brown.
“We have 122 people who go to the food bank to get Christmas hampers. These are the same people that are going to be paying for this out of their tax dollars.”
Coun. Joe Van Tienhoven suggested to his colleagues that the township come up with a rule or policy for similar requests.
“Ice rates are set and they are subsidized by the taxpayer already,” he said.
“We can’t reduce or waive rates for any one group. We have so many groups using our facilities, pretty soon everyone will want it for free.”
The last time the tournament was hosted by North Okanagan Minor Hockey was in 1990.
“The majority of kids (on the host team) in this tournament are from Armstrong and Spallumcheen,” said Coun. Christine Fraser.
“It’s our local kids participating. It brings people to our community.”
