Town to look at tweaking sponsorship policy

Jeff Helsdon, Editor

Tillsonburg will reconsider its policy on community sponsorships and partnerships following a notice of motion passed at the Feb. 23 meeting.

The notice of motion, put forward by Coun. Kelly Spencer, called for staff to develop a comprehensive policy to increase “municipal revenue through sponsorships, partnerships, and community campaigns” for town assets, including recreational facilities, cultural programming, environmental initiatives, and communications. It will also look at community-based opportunities for memorial recognition and crowdfunding.

Spencer explained she attended an information session on this topic at the recent Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference with Deputy Mayor Dave Beres. She realizes the local budget is tight.

“This motion is being proactive and strategic with how we develop non-tax revenue for a municipality,” she said.

Although council approved a policy for sponsorship of recreational facilities, Spencer said there are other opportunities, such as events. She explained she doesn’t want to commercialize the town, and a policy would make the process more transparent.

“Every dollar generated through sponsorship is a dollar that doesn’t come from taxpayers,” she added, explaining the policy doesn’t change anything today, but just provides options and guardrails.

Coun. Chris Parker pointed to the naming policy approved in 2024 and questioned the difference between what is being proposed and that policy. Spencer answered that this would be town-wide.

Beres said this type of funding can pay for ongoing maintenance, mentioning the name change of London’s John Labatt Centre, Budweiser Centre, and Canada Life Place as an example. He said he has been approached by representatives of local industries asking how they can assist.

Parker, a member of the Sports and Recreation Advisory Committee that was instrumental in developing the policy, said he sees it as a policy on top of another policy.

“I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m saying there’s room to make things better,” Beres said.

Parker responded that the policy has been in place for a year and hasn’t been used.

Spencer suggested adding town events to the policy, saying, “The policy is great. It's taking that policy and expanding it.”

CAO Kyle Pratt said the current policy applies to town property in general, adding that the policy hasn’t been used is a reason to explore it further.

Mayor Deb Gilvesy suggested tweaking the existing policy, agreeing it needs to include possible sponsorship of digital communications and events. She said looking at an entirely new policy may be a little redundant, though.

“It has vague working about anything beyond recreation, culture, and parks; it doesn’t have infrastructure or events,” Spencer answered. “I’m just asking the departments to look at the policy we have and expand it to more options of potential revenue.”

Coun. Pete Luciani said there is also a policy for advertising on the bus, and asked if this suggestion is for a comprehensive all-in-one policy or just looking to gather ideas and put them into other policies.

Spencer said her vision was to look at all options for revenue that is not taxpayer revenue.

Coun. Chris Rosehart also raised concerns about a policy already in place and understood that the naming of bridges was under review. Her question about how such a policy would work prompted Director of Parks, Culture, and Recreation Andrea Greenway to share that she is working on a report on names in connection with the first policy. Still, it has required looking through records, as some of the names can’t be removed because of the terms of the agreement. A report on this will be coming to the council in the future.

Gilvesy said she supported the concept, but not the resolution, because it involves a lot of staff time. She added that there were great ideas in the resolution, and changes could be made to the existing policy.

“We haven’t seen the policy work yet,” the mayor said. “We’re going to get a report back. We need to see that and then go from there.”

Parker suggested limiting the resolution as it overcomplicates the changes sought, but agreed there were some positives.

Some tweaks were made to the original resolution before it passed, taking out a couple of points but retaining the emphasis on exploring sponsorship opportunities across a wider range.