Windsor city council has notified the nine Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) across the city that it will be usurping the role of their board members for about two months — in aim of putting a matching set of rules in place across the board.
It’s a decision that was made Monday night during an in camera meeting of council, with the organizations told Tuesday.
Board members for all nine BIAs will be benched, and any member appointments put on hold, as council works with city staff to draft uniform rules such as:
- how membership is determined,
- how elections are conducted,
- the manner of selecting board members,
- the resignation of members,
- the determination of when a member’s seat becomes vacant,
- the filling of vacancies, how verifications are undertaken,
- how financial matters are handled; and more.
Onorio Colucci, Windsor’s city manager, says it’s overdue.
“This was something that, from an administrative point of view, we've thought over the last few years that there was a growing need for this,” he says.
“With nine different organizations, you can imagine that there's different approaches to things and we wanted to make sure it was standardized that improved transparency and accountability.”
Colucci says council’s decision keeps them in the board seats for up to 60 days, but that the process could take less than.
If it does the boards will be reinstated sooner, but in the meantime council members will be calling the shots.
“To the extent that the BIAs require a decision by the board, the board of each BIA is council,” Colucci says.
“So they would reach out to us and bring those issues before council, council would meet as that board for the purpose of making decisions.”
Colucci says the move is about consistency — in terms of governance rules, elections, record keeping and budgets.
BIAs have levying power — the smallest, a levy of $30,000 with the largest (the Downtown BIA) close to $700,000.
In Monday night’s decision council approved the release of an interim payment up to 50 per cent of last year’s levy “to support business expenditures funded and approved within the 2022 BIA levy.”
BIAs feeling caught off guard
Shane Potvin, Board Chair of the Ford City BIA said he feels this is the wrong move.
He said the BIAs work best with boards made up of members who know the neighbourhood, not based in city hall.
“The members are getting punished,” he said.
Potvin said change can be good, but that uniformity might not be the best approach to the nine organizations.
“We operate in our own little bubbles,” he said. “We connect with each other and, yes, some broad changes could help. This is, I think, the wrong method to do that.”
Potvin said there was no communication ahead of council’s decision, with he and other BIA stakeholders notified by email after the fact.
Chris Ryan, whose appointment to interim chair of the Riverside BIA has been paused by the move, said that’s the worst part.
“It’s dumbfounding,” he said. “To do this in camera when these same councillors say they support small business? Come forward and let us know how you’re voting.”
Ryan said the timing of this is going to impact the Riverside BIAs ability to get flowers in place for spring and plan events for summer.
Potvin said the measure could impact Ford City’s ability to plan the Dropped on Drouillard event for 2023.
“We can’t even begin to start having those conversations because we need people who can sign cheques,” he said.
Colucci said any decisions that would typically need BIA board approval over the next 60 days will need to go to council.
It’s expected that city staff will hold a virtual meeting with representatives of the nine BIAs Wednesday to further clarify how the period will play out.
