CORNWALL, Ontario – Councillor Maurice Dupelle pushed for a motion to stop the City of Cornwall from paying management fees to Leader Sports, the private company that operates the Big Ben Ski Hill and Marina 200.
The motion was hotly debated at the meeting of City of Council on Monday, March 23.
If passed, the City would cease management fee payments in 2018.
“We have no association with the companies that manage this property,” Dupelle explained. “These are tight budget times. It does not go to something personal, it goes to not giving municipal funds to private business.”
Councillor Elaine MacDonald however, expressed her opposition to ending the municipal subsidy for these two Cornwall attractions.
“I can’t say I support this as it is,” she said. “We don’t have the where-with-all to run these operations ourselves. I would hate to lose these services in our municipality. As long as it fills a niche in our city that can’t be filled any other way I think it is worth taking a pause before we cancel it outright.”
MacDonald pointed out that the City pays a similar management fee to minor hockey teams when they use the City’s ice time at local hockey rinks.
Councillor Bernadette Clement brought forth a motion to defer the final decision on the subsidy until more information could be brought to council. Specifically, Clement wanted to know if these two sites could be better maintained for a better cost.
“Everytime we subsidize ice time for minor hockey, we’re subsidizing and we should be subsidizing childrens activities,” she said.
Councillor Towndale opposed the deferral and objected to the comparison of the deal that Leader Sports has to the management fees that are paid to minor hockey teams.
“Minor hockey pays us for ice time and we give them a discount,” he said. “They (Leader Sports) don’t pay us to use Big Ben, we pay them..
“I’m not sure why we would defer this,” said Councillor Dupelle. “We don’t subsidize private business. That is the issue on the table. I ask for a recorded vote to see who is in favour of funding private business and who isn’t.”
The City’s Division Manager for Parks and Recreation James Fawthrop said that the City is paying $64, 000 for Marina 200, but not all of that goes towards Leader Sports’ management fee, explaining that the City also pays for utilities and building maintenance.
While Councillor Claude McIntosh pointed out that he did not believe the City could not operate the sites in a more cost effective way, he also warned council that if they did not move carefully, the City could lose these two attractions.
“Ice camps are making money using our facilities. I can make a buck on renting ice from The City,” he said. “My concern is that we say we’re not trying to close Big Ben and the Marina, but in some ways we are. They could walk away from it and we should be very careful.”
The motion to defer passed by a vote of 8-3 with Councillors Dupelle, Towndale and Murphy voting against. City Administration has until the end of April to come back with a report to Council on alternatives to the management fees for Big Ben and Marina 200.
