Car Free Days – Amendment to Amendment D and E
Motion 33 · Council Meeting, March 10, 2026
Summary
- Amendment to Councillor Meiszner's Car Free Days motion adding clauses D and E to provide delegated authority for the city to enter into a grant agreement and require an event delivery plan before funds are distributed.
Vote
Transcript
9 segments
Thank you very much, Councillor Claussen. Yeah, thanks very much. Thanks, Councillor Meiszner. Completely supportive of trying to make sure that the car-free event street festival remains. I'm not sure. I know that it hasn't operated for at least the last two years in the West End. To my knowledge, Main Street and Commercial Drive are still going, so... If $30,000 can keep this event going and it comes with some of the detailed planning that is specified in Councillor Meiszner's strike and replace, I'm happy to support that. I just wanted to, and Customizer did identify some of the funding that came through FestShare. Through you, Mayor, I just wonder if I may just ask staff that are present. We've had some explanation as to the existing funding that has gone to support. I think what I was worried about is that it might be mischaracterized that This was a cutback or some kind. I think we have been pretty consistent, the city, in terms of being able to grant and support these events through FedShare and other means. Is that correct? Including policing costs.
Yes, Councillor, Festshare continues to support public events like this, and there have been no reductions in the Festshare allocation, so that continues to be the case. So there are existing programs. We do need delegated authority, though, to enter into the grant agreement, so we've sent some suggested additions.
Okay. Okay, that's appreciated. Again, I know that the city has tried hard to support these great community gatherings, and I'm hopeful that with this allocation that it will get us over the line and make sure that we can bring this back in September. I'm very much looking forward to being back out in those communities and enjoying the street festivals. Thanks very much.
Thank you. I think that the absolute most important thing here is that we get funding approved quickly and I appreciate Councillor Meiszner coming up with a form of words that is likely to be acceptable to... two-thirds of the majority on council. I'm just concerned that I'd just like to send a message to the evaluator of the detailed plan to please be as helpful and supportive as possible because I know that Car Free Days is not an organisation with a lot of resources and I'm sure they'll do their best to come up with a very best possible detailed plan in a very short timeframe. But I would hate for that to be an overwhelming burden. So I had something else to say. No, I can't remember what that is. So I will just support this amendment on the basis that it will hopefully happen in time for car-free days to go ahead on Main Street and Commercial Drive. Thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Meiszner. Yeah, thanks. And thanks, Councillor Maloney for those comments. So as we just heard from the deputy city manager, we did require some additional language. So I did send that in. We have to go to another queue or I'm not sure how this works. Nope. Okay. So that just adds D and E. That's around the delegated authority, the need for the delegated authority that was just identified by the deputy city manager.
All right. Yeah. Is this a strike in our place? Do we have to go to amendment to amendment Q? I think we're all happy with it, adding it.
I just want to do things correctly procedurally, so I'm not sure what the right approach is.
Eric, what's your recommendation here? All right, we're going to go to amendment Q2. Okay, thank you. Great. Thank you, Councillor. Any discussion? Great. So the amendment to the amendment is adding clauses D and E to Councillor Meiszner's amendment. Okay. Can we please go to the voting panel and register your vote? Amendment to amendment.