Edmonton council weighs pulling plug on selling name sponsorships

Reservations about selling the names on community centres got lively on Wednesday at an Edmonton city council meeting.

Despite a roster of businesses willing to wheel and deal to be the next sponsor of a community centre, the Booster Juice Community Centre could be a unicorn, along with Rogers Place, as the only business-named city facility.

A projected $21 million that facility sponsors might bring in over 10 years is dwarfed by the city’s fiscal gap between revenue and expenses.

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“Over the last four years, we have reduced our expenditures by close to $200 million. We had to make a very tough decision of raising taxes to close that fiscal gap,” Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said.

“This fiscal gap has been caused by previous councils’ decision to freeze taxes and lower taxes, and it was caused by the province not doing its share of supporting municipalities in our grant funding, or not paying their property taxes that are owed to Edmonton. Almost $90 million is still owed to Edmonton by the Government of Alberta that has not been paid. Or the province not properly maintaining provincial highways within city boundaries that we are putting a lot of city resources to maintaining,” he said.

“Those are the core causes of the fiscal gap, and these kind of sponsorship agreements are not going to make a huge difference in closing that gap and, at the same time, they take away community pride and the community’s predominant name on those buildings,” he said.

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Edmontonians have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into these recreation centres, Sohi said, citing a $600 million taxpayer investment in Meadows, Clareview and the future Lewis Farms recreation centres.

“Having corporate sponsors that will give you a hundred thousand dollars and have a predominant name on the building, in my mind, undermines that community commitment to those facilities, and undermines the community’s pride in supporting those facilities through their tax dollars,” Sohi said.

That would be eased in part if the provincial government would keep their promises, Sohi said, noting the province hasn’t paid taxes since 2019 on some buildings.

‘Deep concerns’

Coun. Michael Janz said he has deep concerns about selling the name of city facilities, calling it a “slippery slope” he’s been deeply uncomfortable with for a long time.

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“I think the Downtown arena is a great example. It’s called Rogers Place, but really it’s the City of Edmonton taxpayers’ arena,” he said.

“We are working to get our tax levy down from nine per cent to six per cent but just overnight, at the provincial budget, the province makes one penstroke and is charging Edmonton now (millions more) in education and property taxes,” Janz said.

Coun. Tim Cartmell said city council “not very long ago, completely removed itself from the sale of surplus school sites to the tune of $100 million.

“We’ve left, we refused, or effectively gave up, the opportunity for oversight on those deals, to have those come back to council for ratification. And yet that’s not even being proposed here. It’s simply that, ‘Hey, we’re going to go have some conversations, and we will bring it to you for ratification.’ This is so misplaced, and this is so out of sync with the decisions that are really in front of us here. So I’m sorry, I just don’t quite get it,” Cartmell said.

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“I think we cannot diminish or turn our back on any potential revenue streams. I think, frankly, the secret sauce here is in what corporate relationships would we seek? What titles would we be interested in having on our buildings? There’s certainly some corporate brands that we would not want to associate with, and some that we might really embrace,” Cartmell said, citing homegrown companies like Booster Juice, the paid namesake for the Terwillegar community centre.

“I think that there’s a middle ground here where we could actually celebrate some of the really cool things that people have done in this city to build their companies, employ people, enrich the community, be philanthropic with their dollars. And if that reaches to the point of putting the name on a building beside our name, I think that actually says that there are partnerships that we really value, and we can look at it in that way and reap the reward of additional revenue streams — big, larger, or in the middle,” Cartmell said.

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Every bit helps

The whole debate reminded Coun. Aaron Paquette of lean college years when he was grateful to find change in couch cushions.

“That’s sort of where we’re at right now, unless this council, or a future council, decides to have taxes match inflation and population growth,” Paquette said.

“I don’t see that anytime soon. So in the meantime, although it’s not the most exciting thing in the world to do, this is a potential income stream,” he said.

“At the end of the day, I think that there’s probably some really tasteful ways to move, and I think that there’s been learnings from what we’ve already done to date, or probably maybe engender some better conversations,” he said.

Every bit helps, he said.

“I am actually quite serious about building whatever income change we can, no matter how apparently small,” he said.

“I guess it has to be mentioned that the reason we’re doing this is because there’s a deep desire to keep taxes as low as possible and to maximize passive income streams for the City of Edmonton, which makes sense,” Paquette said, adding that the city may have “blown past” the point of diminishing returns on what can be squeezed from the project.

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As the council meeting went on in the late afternoon, wording for a motion and a final vote on the future of naming was still in the works.

jcarmichael@postmedia.com

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