City of Powell River councillors had recommendations presented to them to award four grants-in-aid, but councillors only approved three.
At the July 30 special city council meeting, councillors were told that the 2024 grant funding available was $25,000, and that the city had received four applications, totalling $17,000. These included a $6,500 application by Wild Ocean Whale Society for $6,500 to assist with dealing with the feral cat population in the city.
qathet Pride Society applied for $6,000 to support an annual pride celebration. Everybody Deserves a Smile asked for $2,500 to assist with the costs of kindness bags to be distributed to vulnerable community members during the holiday season.
There was also a $2,000 request from the African and Afro-Caribbean Association of qathet for a celebratory event during Black History Month in February 2025.
City chief financial officer Mallory Denniston said the grant-in-aid program provides support to nonprofit organizations’ activities and events, to distribute or improve the economic and civic health of the community. She said all the applications met the 10 eligibility criteria outlined in the community partnership report. She said it was recommended that the full requested amount by the applicants be awarded, leaving $8,000 in the budget for off-cycle requests, should any be received.
Regarding the Wild Ocean Whale Society application, councillor George Doubt asked if there was any information on who had requested feral cat trapping in the city.
Denniston said this is an issue the bylaws department has been facing but she did not have any exact details on what was in the report.
Doubt then asked how a feral cat is identified.
Denniston said she would need to connect him with the nonprofit organization, which is the expert.
Councillor Trina Isakson moved that council approve the 2024 grant-in-aid requests, totalling $17,000.
Doubt moved an amendment to remove Wild Ocean Whale Society from the list. As the city’s qathet Regional District representative, he said he saw the organization’s application to the regional district. The society had applied for funding for Texada Island and Electoral Area A, north of the city.
“At the finance committee meeting of June 5, the regional district talked about that and the regional board made a decision to not provide a grant of $6,543 from the Area A grant-in-aid service, but provided a $2,000 grant-in-aid from Texada Island,” said Doubt. “The reason was that they didn’t particularly have a long list of people from Area A saying they wanted this done. For that reason, I don’t agree with spending $6,500 of city taxpayer’s money.”
Isakson said she didn’t support the amendment. She said there are feral cat issues in the city.
“I don’t know how to identify feral cats but I assume animal welfare organizations do and there are costs associated in dealing with feral cats,” added Isakson.
Denniston said it might be a good idea to have Wild Ocean Whale Society in to speak to councillors directly to provide more information.
The amendment to exclude Wild Ocean Whale Society carried, with Isakson and councillor Cindy Elliott opposed.
Elliott asked if it was council’s intention to have Wild Ocean Whale Society make a presentation and consider the application separately. Mayor Ron Woznow said that was a point that Denniston put forward and he believed there was a consensus to do so.
Council then approved the amended main motion, with Wild Ocean Whale Society excluded.
Elliott made a motion to have the society appear as a delegation so the application might be considered separately. The motion carried.
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