Members of Penticton city council expressed “disappointment” with the Downtown Penticton Association following the “short notice” given that the association would be stepping down from organizing civic events.

The DPA approached council on March 5 to request an increased partnership and share of financial responsibility in implementing its annual civic events. The DPA organizes and funds the majority of the Canada Day celebrations, Santa Claus Parade, Rock the Sun Festival, B.C. Day and more.

Following this presentation, the DPA approached staff and said members and the board had decided to step down from running these events entirely in order to focus on its mandate to promote successful businesses in the downtown. At that point, the city agreed to take over funding and hosting these events.

READ ALSO: City of Penticton assumes ownership of DPA civic events

On March 19 at the regular council meeting, council voted to reallocate the $33,990 that would have been granted to the DPA for these events to the Sport and Event Program from the Municipal Grant Program for 2019. They also voted to deny a funding request made by the DPA for an $1,190 grant to organize and host the Live at Lunch Series for 2019.

“Would they not, by now avoiding the expense of those (civic) events, have $1,100 that they can use from their existing budget?” asked Coun. Campbell Watt.

“The conclusion that you’ve reached could very much hold true. They likely do have more capacity now based upon not taking on these other events,” said Jim Bauer, the city’s CFO.

Watt responded that without “much further detail from the DPA,” he would not be in favour of approving the funding request. He said other organizations that request grants must provide information about their current finances and budget, something the DPA did not provide to the city.

“I’d just like to say that it is extremely unfortunate that these events have been put onto this council with such short notice,” said Coun. Jake Kimberley, who also supported the motion to deny the grant request. “These events are really important to the city as we all know, as we’ve all attended them, the city’s been funding them and helping them over the years with tax dollars. And now in this short period of time we’ve been asked now as council to find more funding and create the events ourselves.”

READ ALSO: DPA looking to partner with City of Penticton for civic events

Coun. Julius Bloomfield also supported the denial of the grant, but cited he thinks the city and the DPA can have a “long and good relationship in the future.” He highlighted a number of topics addressed and actions taken by the city in response to DPA concerns in the last five months.

“Since this council got elected, there has been some concerns that the DPA have had about various items in the downtown area. And this council has supported the DPA. They were concerned about security in the downtown, so we requested extra patrols by the RCMP, which we were charged double-time for,” said Bloomfield. “They were concerned about the response times by the RCMP so we agreed to hire extra bylaw officers to increase patrols in the downtown area. When we had the cannabis retail outlet debate, we as a council voted to allow these outlets on Main Street which was supported and requested by the DPA, and that was a strong reason for our vote on that issue.

“I feel that we have done a lot for the DPA since we’ve been elected, and then the DPA decided to pull out of these events with four months notice. Some of these events take a year to plan, and we cannot do without these events … I’m a little disappointed in the lack of notice that we had for pulling out of these events.”

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