Sooke district council approved funds totalling more than $122,000 this week to help non-profit organizations, but some councillors questioned whether the funds were allocated fairly.
Council budgeted $65,000 for community grants, but requests exceeded the budget by $81,049. Councillors divided requests into two funding categories: community grants and the provincial COVID-19 Safe Restart fund in hopes of handing out more money.
And although councillors agreed the money was needed in the community, councillors Al Beddows and Kevin Pearson questioned the lack of discussion on who gets what.
Beddows noted he dedicated numerous hours to listening to presentations and conducting research. However, when the councillors decided on the funding, there was no deliberation on each request; instead, they voted on the funding as a whole.
“I’m appalled at this process. It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Beddows said.
“We have not had any discussion about it. All we did is listen (to the applicants) and ask them the odd question, but there are some things here I do not support.”
Pearson said he would have preferred to break the requests down individually.
“There are just things we should say out loud and get into the minutes as opposed to just approving the money,” he said.
Council unanimously approved funding for the community grants ($57,324) and COVID-19 Safe Restart funding ($65,000), and councillors could have asked for individual organizations to be debated separately. No one made that request.
Coun. Megan McMath said the funding requests were voted on in blocks for efficiency.
“The reality is all of these groups have suffered like the rest of the community with the challenges of the last three years,” McMath said.
Two organizations, the Sooke Pickleball Group and the Sooke Horseshoe Pitching Association, received the maximum amount of $7,000 under community grant funding. Thirteen other groups were granted between $560 and $6,500. Eleven groups were funded up to $7,000 through COVID-19 restart funds.
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