The Osoyoos Lake Paddle Club hosted, and participated in, its second flag race on Sept. 21, 2019. (File photo)

Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

The Osoyoos Lake Paddle Club was denied a request for funding to assist with the Osoyoos Dragon Boat Festival, but town council asked to see more budget information saying they would revisit the request as they made the final tweaks to the 2020 financial plan.

Council responded to budget issues raised a public budget hearing in February at the March 2 regular council meeting at Town Hall.

Coun. Brian Harvey said he was not in support of awarding the $6,000 ask from the Osoyoos Lake Paddle Club through the provincial Resort Municipality Initiative (RMI) fund.

Events like the upcoming Osoyoos Dragon Boat Festival are designed to host a tournament or event, but also raise funds for the organization, Harvey said.

“The Festival Society, the fireworks, Music in the Park, those are really civic endeavours. People are volunteering their time really not for participation in an activity, but it’s a civic endeavour, you give back to the community,” Harvey said. “They have no source of funding, other than donations.”

The Paddle Club received $5,000 last year from RMI funding, but council was not willing to grant the funding this year before seeing more financial information. Council voted to turn down the funding, but added that if the Paddle Club returns with an event budget they would review the application once again.

• Read more: Canada Day Fireworks Committee denied increase in resort municipality funding

So far, $14,000 has been allocated from the annual RMI budget, with the Osoyoos Festival Society and Osoyoos Fireworks receiving $7,000 each. The town has $35,400 in RMI funding still available.

Harvey said there was no event budget for the Dragon Boat Festival presented to council, raising questions about the $6,000 ask for a race official.

“It goes to budget and transparency and what are they doing? The event is great, I like it, now it’s a question of taxpayer funding,” Harvey said.

He suggested supporting the Dragon Boat Festival through in-kind support, using town services or staff.

“If we could see the budget we might see how the funding support might help other areas of their event as opposed to the race director and his crew who come to town to receive those funds,” said town CAO Allan Chabot said.

Harvey noted representative Wendy Barlow from the Osoyoos Lake Paddle Club said the event would go forward without the funding at the budget presentation in February.

“I don’t feel the event is at risk,” Harvey said. “I think we should espouse support for them but they have to do a lot clearer job in holding out their hat.”

Another budget item council looked at was a $10,562 ask from the Osoyoos Museum to offset the costs associated with the developments and building permits for the renovations of the new Main Street location.

Council voted to fund the request from town reserves.