Just to say it one more time for everyone who has had a hard time understanding who is where in this rugby game of park board versus community-centre associations: There is actually a group of community-centre associations that has been ready to negotiate with the park board and that did not take to the streets to declare emergency, as Kerrisdale and Killarney did.
That group, originally 16, put in a counter-proposal mid-January to the park-board “presentations” that general manager Malcolm Bromley had been delivering. In the ensuing uproar, it looks as though three have bailed from that group, not sure which ones. But 13 are still on board.
In any case, the Associations Presidents Group, whose chair is Kate Perkins of Trout Lake, is still willing to give it a go, based on the public declaration from Bromley at the crazy meeting Monday night that he is willing to negotiate about the revenue sharing.
My story on this, along with Daniel Bitonti’s accounts from said crazy meeting Monday, is here. (Pasted below the fold, as they say)
Also, as a handy guide to what is actually under negotiation, this is what I have been able to work out thanks to input from various people. If I still have some things wrong, please let me know.
1. The association counter-proposal said all the associations were willing to accept the park board flexi-pass, the park board leisure access pass (for low-income users), and membership cards from any centre equally at all centres. There is some language about figuring out how to get compensation for some of that.
2. Non-profit societies will continue to exist and continue to apply for federal and provincial grants. It is not the case, as some have said, that they’re all going to be lost. Kate Perkins said there does have to be some care taken to make sure that association staff are supervising those programs and not park-board staff or there could be a risk of ineligibility.
3. The on-board associations are willing to do collaborative budgeting and actually see it as helpful.
4. Still not at all clear to me where things stand re the park board taking over all staffing and collecting all revenue. As above, programs that rely on grants seem to be excluded from that.
5. Really, the biggest sticking point seems to be the model for sharing revenue. It appears to me that the park board wanted to take over all staffing in order to collect all revenue. If another model could be worked out, that might not be necessary. I had suggested in a Branch discussion and I see Stuart McKinnon also suggested something similar that the park board could start charging a rental fee, based on the fees charged and the volume of activities booked. That way, a centre that ran a lot of programs and charged a lot of fees for them would end up paying a bit more. A centre that ran a lot of programs but charged low fees would pay less. A centre that ran many or few programs but charged no fees would pay nothing.
However, as mentioned in my story, Perkins didn’t want to talk about potential financial models, saying there has already been so much misinformation flying around (the natural result of trying to explain complex contract issues to thousands of people in the public who are paying varying levels of attention) that she didn’t want to add to it by negotiating in public.
6. Many of us here in the media are still baffled by the divergence in information presented by the park board and the centres on some issues. The most striking one for me was when Renfrew Park former president David Sexton pointed out that Renfrew did NOT, as Bromley’s presentation stated, only contribute $50,000 to various capital costs at the centre. Instead, the association, which he said fundraised half a million in the community, contributed around $627,000. That made me wonder about all of the math in the park presentation.
7. There’s still a lot of missing information. Bromley’s presentation said taxpayers contribute about $18 million a year to community centres and revenues bring in about $19 million. But I didn’t see anything that said how much revenue the associations collect (and keep) and how much the park board already collects and keeps, since it runs all the rinks and pools.
8. I think I can safely say, on behalf of all of us, that a productive solution is worked out.
It’s kind of cool, when you think about it, that a government operation and a bunch of little volunteer associations jointly run a multi-million-dollar community-centre system. I was impressed by what I heard from association presidents about what their groups do — running childcare programs, raising money to build pools, outfitting their own fitness centres and more. That’s a system to be admired and emulated by others.
But I can also see the point of view of those who say that it’s a bit off for centres to claim they are “fundraising,” when what they are doing is collecting the revenue in buildings built, maintained, heated, lit, and insured by the park board aka all taxpayers as a whole, and then saying that they have no obligation to share with anyone.
It would help all of us, and the negotiating process, if both sides would clarify some of the wrong information they seem to have put out.
The majority of Vancouver community-centre associations are prepared to try to negotiate with the Vancouver park board, says the chair of a group representing association presidents – despite a lengthy and acrimonious meeting Monday night.
The often emotional nine-hour session ended near dawn Tuesday morning with a 5-2 vote by park-board commissioners directing staff to continue negotiating with associations on a way to share program revenue and provide equal access to all centres across the city.
