by Marcel Tetrault
Comox Valley Echo

Friday, January 16, 2009

Cumberland will be adopting a new policy to cover the use of village facilities by community groups in the wake of a Chamber of Commerce request to waive the rental fee for the cultural centre for an event in February.

The chamber is hosting the 2009 Cumberland Lunar New Year dinner on Feb. 7, and asked council to waive the $325 rental fee for the facility.

Village staff reported that the chamber received a total of $1,450 in rental fee waivers in 2008 as well as free use of the museum building.

"It's quite a bit of assistance already for the Chamber of Commerce," said village chief administrative officer Anja Nurvo.

But it was also noted that the events for which rental fees are waived are typically quite beneficial to the village.

"All of these functions and all of these groups do in fact contribute to the village at the end of the day," said Mayor Fred Bates. "But ... it's a case of council trying to weigh what seems to be fair."

Council Bronco Moncrief was concerned that the requests for waivers would "snowball."

"Where do you stop it?" he asked. "If you open the door to one, you open it to all. Maybe they should just tack an extra $5 on the ticket."

In the end, council agreed to waive the rental fee but decided to charge the chamber $185 for staffing and clean-up costs and require them to submit a $250 damage deposit. Chamber representatives at the meeting said they had already expected to pay those costs.

The motion, moved by Coun. Kate Greening, also directed staff to advise the chamber that the request won't necessarily be approved again once a policy is in place.

© Comox Valley Echo 2009