A short agenda, but big questions

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/01/2024 (723 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon city council will hold its first meeting of 2024 tonight and, although the agenda is quite a bit shorter than for most council meetings, it contains two proposals that the public should take note of.

The first proposal is a request by downtown business owner Jordan Ludwig for $150,000 in funding for the Brandon Downtown Biz. As the Sun reported on Saturday, Ludwig proposes that the money be used to help revive the organization, which was originally established by a group of business owners in 2012 but became dormant during the pandemic.

Ludwig contends that “It is a huge amount of work to try to get downtown to the standard that it should be, and it is something that will never be accomplished on a volunteer-only basis.” He says that the $150,000 provided by city council would be used to hire a staff person, pay operational costs including office space, and for funds to be released back into the community through various programs and supports.

He adds that “Everybody is trying to make it better in their own little way, but nobody’s talking to each other, so there’s duplication of efforts. There’s a lack of understanding of who’s responsible for the things that need to happen.” He makes a valid point, and that’s why council should approach the request with caution.

In fact, Ludwig’s request creates an ideal opportunity for council to re-examine the roles played by the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation, the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, the Downtown Wellness and Safety Task Force, Brandon Economic Development and other organizations — almost all of which are taxpayer-funded to some extent — and to re-assess whether so many organizations with so many overlapping, competing and contradictory priorities is helping or hurting downtown revitalization efforts.

In particular, council should be asking if the work of all those organizations, and by the Biz if it is revived, should be carried out by a single organization, with one strong voice and a focused vision for the renewal of the downtown and adjacent neighbourhood.

Ludwig’s funding request represents an ideal opportunity for that discussion to occur. If not now, when?

Also on tonight’s council agenda is a proposal by city administration for a bylaw that would establish a “fiscal contingency general reserve fund” for the city.

The memorandum regarding this proposal says the fund would “allow the City to address significant unforeseen events that are not able to be accommodated within the approved operating budget,” including “extraordinary expenditures or irregular loss of revenues.” The reserve would reduce “the risk of significant unplanned budgetary items negatively impacting levels of service.”

In other words, the city wants to establish a rainy day fund to protect us from unbudgeted, surprise expenses — for example, from an unforeseen flood.

Instead of asking why city administration is proposing the creation of such a fund, the question Brandonites should be asking is why such a fund does not already exist.

After the “high water events” we have experienced over the past several years, and the massive unforeseen costs caused by those events, it should have been obvious to our city council and administration that such a fund was not just prudent, but absolutely necessary.

The fact it has taken this long to finally acknowledge the need for such a fund is sadly consistent with the cavalier approach taken by our city council to budgets and city reserves over the past decade. It put the fiscal viability of our city at risk, a situation the proposed fund seeks to address.

Tonight’s city council agenda may be one of the shortest of the year, but it includes important questions that could impact Brandon’s future for years to come. It marks the beginning of a year of important decisions by council — decisions all Brandonites should be watching carefully.