WESTLOCK — Westlock County wants to investigate the possibility of including non-athletic activities in its youth assistance grant program, which provides financial assistance to local individuals and sports teams attending zone, provincial, national or international competitions.
During their Oct. 10 meeting, county councillors passed a motion to approve the sponsorship and advertising and youth assistance grant policies.
However, the motion also amended the latter policy to remove any reference to cultural activities until administration can eventually have a discussion about what activities would qualify for grants.
Colllin Steffes, general manager of planning and community services, said administration had previously presented the policies to council at the Sept. 26 committee of the whole meeting.
While the sponsorship and advertising policy underwent some minor formatting revisions, there had been “an interesting discussion on the possibility of expanding the scope” of the youth assistance grant policy, Steffes said.
One policy currently states that local athletes have the ability to apply for up to $200 in financial assistance through the program if they are going on to a higher level of competition.
County administration has the ability to approve grants for individuals/teams going on to zone or provincial competitions, but allocations for national or international competitions must be authorized by a council resolution.
All funding is contingent on approval of the community services operational budget.
What prompted a discussion at the administration level is the following reference contained in the policy: “all local sports and cultural activities will be considered by the county.”
Steffes indicated this policy has the potential to become “all-encompassing” should it be expanded to include activities and programs outside athletics.
With that in mind, administration would like to complete a thorough review of the policy and work with the community grants committee to come up with additional guidelines and criteria around cultural activities that could qualify for youth assistance grants.
As such, administration’s recommendation was to keep this as a strictly athletic grant program until these additional guidelines can be developed sometime in 2024.
Given what administration is planning to do, Coun. Stuart Fox-Robinson asked if it was an error that the policy included a reference to cultural activities.
“If we can't define what cultural activity is as it relates to this policy, it probably shouldn’t be in there,” he said.
Fox-Robinson argued that removing the cultural activities reference doesn’t mean it can’t be added back in later. However, if council left it in there and then approved the policy, they would potentially open the door to all manner of grant applications.
Deputy Reeve Ray Marquette agreed with Fox-Robinson, noting that this is an agricultural community and youth sometimes attend agriculture-related events.
Reeve Christine Wiese said the cultural activities reference had been put in there originally specifically because “not all kids are athletic" and there was some idea or awarding grants to youth involved in 4-H or photography competitions.
Nevertheless, she agreed it shouldn’t be in there, at least for the time being.
“It’s weird that it’s in there that way,” she added.
