Two summer events get Council’s support

At a special council meeting held last week, Cold Lake City Council voted to support grant requests from two businesses that are hosting major events this summer.

The grant requests came to council after changes were made to the Community Recreation, Art, Culture and Heritage Investment Grant Policy. These changes allowed for-profit business to apply for event grants, but required that the decision would come directly to Council, rather than being reviewed and recommended by the grant committee.

“We have a number of high-profile events that come to our community,” Mayor Craig Copeland said.

“Ultimately, when council considers supporting an event, we want to see that there is a benefit to the greater community from the event being hosted. Leaving out for-profit businesses from event grants means that some events that have a wide-spread benefit to the general public and the greater business community would not receive support and may not be able to continue in the community.”

The businesses provided financial statements which council considered in an in-camera session, before making their final decisions in the public portion of the meeting.

Approved at the meeting were the following grants:

• $25,000 in cash and grants covering some facility and equipment rental costs for Lakeland Connect to host the Ribfest in Cold Lake at the Cold Lake Energy Centre.
• $20,000 in both cash and in-kind donations for Extreme Mudfest Bonnyville Inc. to host the Mudfest in Cold Lake at the Cold Lake Agriplex.

“Large-scale events are not easy to host, and are far from being a guaranteed success,” Copeland said. “But they also bring a lot of people into Cold Lake, give our residents recreation and entertainment options, and allow the local business community to benefit from the visitors and the increased economic activity that results. We are happy to help out where we can, whether it’s providing a cash grant to cover a few of the costs, or providing in-kind support where possible.”

Information on the City’s grant programs can be found at: www.coldlake.com/grants.