Thursday February 20, 2025 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The Grant in Aid decisions made by the City of Langford Community Advisory Committee last month were essentially rubber-stamped by City of Langford Council during their meeting on Tuesday evening, February 18.
Unlike a more organized and methodical process in previous years — by both the current council and previous councils — this year’s Grant in Aid process was apparently given little thought as to broader goals or impacts. Many parameters seemed to change on the fly during the January 28 committee meeting.
Apparently what was considered a time constraint by the committee chair elicited a loose bundling of 37 grant applications into categories that bound the fate of some groups with others in ways that were unrelated.
For example, not all sports-related applications have the same sort of activity and the range of so-called food security applicants operate in different ways.
The 37 applicants had been loosely grouped by the Community Advisory Committee as:
- School PAcs and Groups
- Community Events
- Arts & Culture
- Sports and Recreation
- Community Associations / Services
- Food Security
- Environment
See City of Langford Council and Committee videos online.
Disconnect between application and delivery:
The application this year encouraged school groups to apply, and then when that call was answered with a flurry of applications, the final ask of the committee was about $245,000. But the Grant in Aid budget is $85,000 this year.
Last year the budget allowed for closer to $100,000 in Community Grants in 2024.
Councillor Colby Harder who sits on the committee did try to encourage Committee Chair Councillor Keith Yacucha and the other committee members to vote in favour of an increase to the $85,000 limit, but Yacucha stuck to his guns.
The overall 2025 Budget has a lot of pressure from other areas, so the community groups served by Grants in Aid were dealing with $85,000 as the limit, no budging.
Despite emotive comments by Councillors on Tuesday evening, the die was cast. The presumption is that groups will now also look elsewhere for funding.
Councillor Yacucha said the committee’s work was “extensive and productive”. He said that ‘every dollar becomes more’ in terms of value delivered.
Councillors in attendance on Tuesday evening were: Mark Morley (Acting Mayor), Kimberley Guiry, Colby Harder, Lillian Szpak, Keith Yacucha and Mary Wagner. Mayor Scott Goodmanson was unable to attend.
Grant Amounts:
The following grants were awarded by the City to these local groups (or that serve the Langford area):
- Bear Mountain Community Association – $1,500
- Belmont Secondary Dry Grad Committee – $2,000
- Big Brothers Big Sisters – $5,000
- Bilston Watershed Habitat Protection Association – $2,500
- Cycling BC – $2,000
- Fateh Care Charity – $5,000
- FED Urban Agriculture Society – $2,000
- GOATS Queer Climbing – $2,000
- Juan de Fuca Lacrosse Association – $1,075
- Juan de Fuca Minor Hockey Association – $1,075
- Open Gate Church – $5,000
- Peninsula Streams Society – $5,000
- Reimagine West Shore – $3,000
- ReWired Recovery Foundation – $5,000
- Royal Bay Secondary School PAC (for Dry Grad) – $1,200
- Ruth King Elementary (for infrastructure) – $5,000
- Soap for Hope – $2,000
- Sooke Family Resource Society (Langford Program Office) – $3,000
- Sport Assist – $5,000
- Story Studio Writing Society – $2,000
- Take A Hike Foundation – $2,000
- Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society – $2,000
- Victoria Sexual Assault Centre –
- Wear2Start Society – $2000
- Westshore Rugby Club – $1,075
- Wild Wise Society – $2,000 (to be confirmed)
- Wounded Warriors – $2,000
Some pre-decided shifts:
Very likely based on input and comments made to councillors ahead of the January 28 and February 18 meetings, two grant asks were shifted to being line items in the regular annual City of Langford budget:
- Langford Legion – $6,000 (for two events – Remembrance Day and Christmas dinner)
- Juan de Fuca Performing Arts Society – $1,500 (proposed arts facility still in planning stage)
Avoid downloading of school budget strain:
There was a sentiment that school groups and Parent Advisory Councils (PACs) should, afterall, go to their own School District SD62 for funding, or other external funding sources.
The City seems to wish to avoid a precedent of ‘downloading’ school system responsibilities onto the municipality.
A possible new approach for 2026:
Councillor Mary Wagner suggested that next year’s Grants in Aid process could have a three-fold benefit if done this way: allow just a few minutes for an ‘elevator speech’ (quick summary) by each applicant group.
This would allow for:
- key points to be factually accurate for the committee to consider (instead of relying on a ‘quick read’ of 800 pages of applications);
- each group to ‘shine’ for a few minutes to both council and committee, as a way to recognize their work on behalf of the community, and
- allow Council to fully know the range of work being done in the community.
This approach is taken in other communities, including the District of Sooke, which values the process of showcasing their community groups in a high-profile way for a few minutes each year.
It also helps a municipality keep track of what is going on in their community, in a way that is both transparent and appreciative.
===== RELATED:
- Langford 2025 community grants tally to $85,000 (January 29, 2025)
- Knowing a community through the municipal grants process (April 17, 2024)
- Langford supports nearly $100K in community grants (March 4, 2024)
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