Funding denied for Fantastic Family Fun Fest

At their meeting Feb. 7, County of Barrhead councillors voted to approve funding for part of a Canada 150 event to be held in Fort Assiniboine in June and at the same time denied funding for the Town of Barrhead’s annual Fantastic Family Fun Fest (F4).

Council voted their approval of a $2,220 request from the Athabasca River Brigade to provide a barbeque lunch, prepared and served by councillors on June 28 and county manager Debbie Oyarzun said Woodlands County was picking up the majority of the costs.

Citing missed deadlines and the lack of timely communication on the part of F4 organizers, Oyarzun said it was unfortunate the county would not be contributing this year and deputy reeve Bill Lee agreed.

“I really appreciate all of these people putting events like this [F4] on, I really do. It’s great. I think, however, that we need to have Diane [Begert, director of finance and administration] come in and inform us on what is available for these types of celebrations, on a first-come-first-serve basis,” Lee said.

Reeve Doug Drozd said it is due diligence on any organization’s part to get their requests out early.

“That way we can do our job and budget for these types of things,” Drozd said, adding the Athabasca River Brigade had sent a delegation to council last year.

“We’ve known for quite some time that we would be spending some money on the brigade’s planned events but we haven’t received any grants from the federal government to help with these types of celebrations. It all comes out of our general revenue instead and so the question is, how many more groups will be coming to us for money?”

Oyarzun said the county had missed the deadline to contribute to the F4’s colouring books, in spite of a request for a delay.

“I received several emails from the F4 committee that had no budget, no date,” she said, adding that when she had asked if there was any other way the county could contribute, a list of 23 items was proffered.

“The timeliness of the process was unfortunate. In my opinion it is a bit unfair to ask administration to stand before council to make these kinds of requests on such short notice and with such little information that was provided,” Oyarzun said.

With respect to the barbeque in Fort Assiniboine, Coun. Ron Kleinfeldt said he believed it was a better use for their money.

“It’s all about the past history of Canada and our area,” he said, adding the brigade’s delegation came early and informed council in a timely manner.

“We didn’t say for sure that we would help them at the time, but I don’t have a problem with that. The only question is how we decide to handle these types of requests in the future.”

Drozd agreed.

“I appreciate the fact that they [Athabasca River Brigade] gave us good notice. We didn’t make any commitments to contribute any money but we felt it was important enough to have Coun. Troock become an active member and liason with their organization. In hindsight we should have been looking at Canada 150 a year and a half ago and put some money into a fund for celebratory events but we didn’t do that, so here we are,” Drozd said.