Homecoming Committee Rent reduction request to be examined by city staff

Members of the Prince Rupert
Homecoming Committee at Council

Two members of the Prince Rupert Homecoming Committee appeared at Prince Rupert City Council on Tuesday, offering up a short overview of the plans for this years reunion and expressing concern over the rate of rental for the Civic Centre facility.

At the heart of their concern, a rental charge of 9,000 dollars that Committee spokespersons Barb Gruber and Sandra Greer advised was just too much for them to pass along to Homecoming visitors this May.

Mrs. Gruber made note that the amount for this years rental was double what it was five years ago and was not at all in the area that they had budgeted for when they drew up their plans for this years event. Included in the rental charge for this year, is the pay for city staff to lend assistance in the set up and preparation of the Civic Centre for the event.

And while she acknowledged that the rent would be less if they attract less participants to this years event, with a rent of around 5,000 dollars should they only use one room of the complex, there was still a desire of the Committee to seek some relief from the cost of the rental.

The two ladies also observed that while they had missed the application date for seeking assistance through the City's community enhancement grant process, but still interested in accessing community funding if possible.

After some questions from Council members about the work required for the set up and what kind of registration numbers they had to date, the Mayor advised that Council would seek more information from staff and bring the issue back for discussion at the next council session later this month.

Following their presentation, Council discussed the situation further as part of their discussion related to the current Budget process, with the City's Financial Officer pointing out that there is still a little over 8,000 dollars in the late requests portion of the Community Grant process, which if Council wished could be put to use of the Homecoming.

And while Councillor Cunningham originally suggested that the full amount be used to address the Homecoming issue, Council members decided to review the situation further, realizing that should they offer the full amount for Homecoming, there would be no other money left over for other groups that may require further assistance.

Council will consider the situation and request at a later date, before making a decision on what assistance, if any can be forwarded to the Homecoming Committee.

The Prince Rupert Homecoming is set for May 14-18 and is expected to attract over 1,000 visitors to the city for the four days of events.

You can learn more about the Homecoming plans and their concerns from the City's Video Archive it starts at the one minute mark and continues through to the ten minute point.




For more items related to City Council discussions see our archive page here.