Sudbury Northern Life
Though the downtown Sudbury business association (BIA) has had a stellar year, cracks are appearing in the business improvement group.
This summer the association, named Downtown Sudbury, organized a number of events from Blues For Food in June to the highly successful Ribfest in August. Over 15,000 people attended Ribfest.
Now the group's volunteer board wants to cast its net towards the possibility of a northern school of architecture being located within their boundaries.
A proposal was put forth to have the organization ante up $50,000 as leverage to help the school's proponents attract more funding partners.
The money would only be allocated if the full funding for the school was found with the building to be sited within the boundaries of the business association, said the group's chair of the board, Bob Wygant.
City councillors, such as Ward 2 Coun. Jacques Barbeau, have indicated that the proposed $1 million per year contribution by the city for the school needs to be balanced by other funding partners.
Otherwise, it may be prudent for the city to abstain from including the substantial contribution in this year's budget, said Barbeau in a recent finance committee meeting.
That was the intent of the group, said Wygant.
“The school of architecture would inject over $3 million into the downtown. Our modest proposal would help them to leverage much more money from other sources,” he said.
Downtown Sudbury was to announce the funding Friday at Market Square. Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci and Sudbury MP Glenn Thibeault were to be in attendance. The press conference was suddenly cancelled.
John Rutherford, Durham Street business owner, said he and other business owners are unhappy about the management of the business board's decisions.
“It is basically about the mechanism whereby a decision has been made internally at Downtown Sudbury,” said Rutherford.
The $50,000 contribution would be a significant chunk of the group's $400,000 annual budget, said Rutherford.
“It is a significant chunk of change out of project funding. What we wonder is why there was not $5,000 for a feasibility study to determine if there is enough space downtown for the footprint of the building as proposed,” he added.
Wygant said no money would be released until the architecture school project was ready to go and set to locate in the jurisdiction of Downtown Sudbury.
A draft letter, to be sent to Mayor John Rodriguez and city solicitor Ron Swiddle, was faxed to Northern Life Friday, requesting that there be a cessation of all disbursements, $5,000 or more, of the BIA for a period of 90 days or until the annual general meeting scheduled for February 2009.
“The foregoing requests are urgently addressed to you in view of Downtown Sudbury BIA Motion 08-174, Meeting of Monday, Dec. 1, 2008, in which a 'financial contribution in the amount of $50,000 to the Northern Ontario School of Architecture' was carried. This item was not on the agenda, passed late in the meeting with one member departed and three others, including one city councilor absent,” stated the letter.
“An expenditure of this magnitude in dollar amount and direction is unprecedented in the history of our BIA, entailing a very large and significant amount of the discretionary monies budgeted for this year,” stated the draft.
Furthermore, the draft alleges that the executive committee for the BIA has not met since the election of the board in January 2008 and there is a breakdown of communication between the board and its members.
The draft also demands the auditor the city intends on hiring in 2009 should evaluate all financial transactions with Downtown Sudbury and two development organizations located in the premises.
A past chair and board member said there is no need to involve a city auditor as the organization is independently audited annually.
“The books are not the problem. But decisions that are made should be more transparent. Sometimes though it can be difficult to make decisions based on consulting the membership,” said the past board member who did not wish to be identified.
The individual also noted the board had decided to support public projects before such as the farmers market and the YMCA.
Another member who signed the draft said a more detailed audit, a forensic audit provided by the city auditor would detect irregularities in the operation of the organization.
“A functional audit checks invoices against items paid. A forensic audit asks for example are we getting the best bang for the buck,” said the individual.
Wygant said he and other board members were disturbed by the allegations. He said he would be soliciting legal advice at a board meeting Monday.
