June 16/10 10:09 am - URGENT - Support for 2011 Road Nationals Requested

Posted by Editoress on 06/16/10
 

If you want the Nationals to be in Burlington in 2011 & 2012  PLEASE attend the  upcoming Burlington City Council meeting at 7 pm, on Wednesday, June 23rd at Burlington City Hall, Brant St.

We need your body present in the Council Chamber as a physical show of support!

All six City of Burlington Councillors in the last two weeks have indicated a desire host the Nationals, but a staff report is recommending withdrawing the previously agreed to by Council condition of bid (police services and municipal services estimated at $70,000 per year) and replace it with a $3,000 grant and all municipal services as charge backs. They feel the charge back for garbage will be around $25,000. They are trying to hit us with municipal services that we have no need of.

Errors and miss-statements are also contained in the Staff Report. Example: lack of courses which only changed from December 2009 versions in May 2010 due to police change of policy. The areas of course awaiting approval are outside of City of Burlington boundaries and thus not in the jurisdiction of City of Burlington. (Councillors received all revised courses in our most recent status of event meetings.) On June 11th Staff advised us for the first time that routes won't be part of the report going to Council (June 11 is the report date). Reason: need permits from other municipalities for courses in their areas and need parking plan for each course which must include letters of permission to use property for parking.

This was the first time we heard of these conditions. That said, we are one year out from race date, permitting for these revised courses in non Burlington territory is in process (some of it conditional on Burlington approving their portion of the course) and one can't get written permission to use parking space without first having municipal event approval.

Planning is done, we are now into the fine details like which farmer will rent us a field for parking. There is no City of Burlington cash outlay until well after all outstanding issues are resolved. And let's not forget that the deal was for police costs and municipal services, we cover all other expenses including the seed money.

Staff wants to delay approval until Jan 2011, a date much too late for solicitation of sponsorship.  

We can't wait. We need approval now. We need Burlington to live up to their commitment.

Council can and does over-ride Staff Reports. They need a reason to do so.

Canadian Road Cycling Championships perfectly fits the Burlington Cycling Master Plan:

- The Canadian Road Cycling Championships (CRCC), "the Nationals" event delivers five (5) City of Burlington Cycling Master Plan objectives

Tourism:

- Demonstrates why Burlington is a perfect cycle tourism hub and thus a great cycle tourism vacation destination. A cycle tourist typically is worth twice that of an auto tourist.

- Scheduling and programming encourages family, multi-day stays utilizing Burlington

Key Financial Benefits:

- STEAM projects a $1.28 million per year return to the community ($2.56 million combined) from CRCC

- CRCC television show production delivering in a package value of between $200,000 to $1 million in media exposure

CRCC versus the World Road Cycling Championships (WRCC) of Hamilton

- CRCC has smaller more manageable crowds (tens of thousands versus hundreds of thousands of spectators),

- CRCC disruption to citizens is less and lower stresses on infrastructure (most events are in the country versus in the city for the WRCC, also shorter schedule)

and you... your desire to race the Nationals in front of a home crowd.

If you happen to be away on business, live too far away from Burlington to attend or travelling to Edmonton for the Nationals please e-mail a note of support to:
Mayor Cam Jackson and Council mayorjackson@burlington.ca

c.c. Councillor Craven cravenr@burlington.ca, Councillor Peter Thoem thoemp@burlington.ca, Councillor John Taylor taylorj@burlington.ca, Councillor Jack Dennison dennisonj@burlington.ca, Councillor Rick Goldring goldringr@burlington.ca, Councillor Carol D'Amelio damelioc@burlington.ca

by 5 pm, Tuesday June 22, 2010
Thank you
 
Craig Fagan
Midweek Cycling Club