SUNDRE – Town council is hopeful that approving in the short-term a one-time cost of $25,000 could yield long-term sustained funding for recreational facilities through corporate sponsorship rights.
Following lengthy budget deliberations on Nov. 25, council had directed administration to bring the proposal back as a separate request for decision.
Linda Nelson, the town's chief administrative officer, outlined administration’s recommendation on Dec. 2 for council to approve the expense of a one-time fee of $25,000 to hire the Performance Sponsorship Group to conduct an asset assessment and report for town-owned facilities. Funds are to be drawn from the Community Services Stabilization restricted surplus account.
Coun. Chris Vardas said, “I’m a big advocate for this; I’ve been trying to push it for it for a number of years.”
During the recent budget deliberations, Coun. Jaime Marr – who supported the proposal in principle – had expressed concerns about an absent naming rights policy.
“I don’t know why we didn’t have a sponsorship policy for something like this,” said Vardas during the Dec. 2 meeting, adding a municipality should not pass up on any opportunity to potentially “collect outside dollars for naming rights on buildings, parks, or whatever the case may be.
“Even the Aquaplex for example – even though I know it’s not owned by us. But it gives them opportunity to collect funding from outside of the residents that are paying their taxes every year,” he said.
Vardas also acknowledged the expense was no small sum, but felt it presented the potential to generate much more in return.
“It’s not a little bit of money, but $25,000 could turn into half a million or $300,000,” he said. “I think it’s a bonus.”
Nelson informed council that administration was also in the process of developing a naming policy that before long would be brought to council and subsequently passed along to the sponsorship group for consideration in the firm’s assessment.
Coun. Todd Dalke offered the lone dissenting voice on council. Adding he perhaps misunderstood the proposal, Dalke said he still felt the community was too small and that the timing wasn’t right.
Mayor Richard Warnock said he’d initially thought the expense ought to be pushed out to 2026 or 2027 once there was more wiggle room in the budget after capital projects such as Centre Street North were completed.
However, Warnock said he had a change of heart following some phone calls to other municipalities whose mayors he’d solicited feedback from, along the way hearing some success stories from towns like Innisfail.
“If we can invest $25,000 of our revenue and bring back even $50,000 or $100,000 to our community to sponsor naming on our buildings, such as the Aquaplex, the curling club, the museum even for that matter . . . this is a risk I believe we should take,” he said.
“If we get one for $25,000, it’s a break-even.”
Recognizing Sundre is not the same scale as other places, he nevertheless felt it was worth exploring.
“Whether it’ll work for Sundre, this is why we have to spend the $25,000,” he said. “I don’t think any of us have the expertise that these people do, to go out and do the marketing they do.”
Following his remarks, the mayor called a vote on the motion, which carried with Dalke opposed.