The criteria for community groups bidding for Coquitlam casino cash may soon be loosened up.
On Monday, the city's council-in-committee heard from city staff proposing to change the rules for how its gaming funds are divvied up.
Coquitlam gets a 10% cut of net revenues as host city to the Great Canadian Casino's Boulevard Casino. It sets aside about $500,000 a year from that money for the Local Area Service Program and another $500,000 for community grants.
Last October, after awarding more than $400,000 in grants to non-profit groups, some city councillors complained that not all the cash allocated was used up and called for the program to be restructured.
Jason Blood, Coquitlam's acting community services manager, told the council-in-committee that city staff have since reviewed the grant criteria as well as best practices in other cities and met with focus groups and past recipients. City staff are now recommending, in part:
the three grant programs - Spirit of Coquitlam, Active and Sports Hosting (the latter two funded by general revenues) - be combined;
the 60% residency requirement be removed and replaced with "projects occurring in Coquitlam only and be of direct benefit to Coquitlam residents";
the grants be matched by the applicant by at least 20%;
the grants allow for multi-year funding;
and the September deadline be changed to June to better align with budget cycles.
Blood said the proposed grant program - which city council has yet to adopt - would be a "one-stop shop" for non-profits, making it easier to apply for cash for capital and operating projects.
Since the Spirit of Coquitlam grants started in 2002, the city has handed out more than $6.2 million over the past decade.
The Active Grant program, which began in 2009 after the Gender Equity program ended, has allocated $103,878 in an effort to get kids fit while the Sports Hosting Grant program has awarded $48,000 since 2004 towards the hosting of national and international sporting events.
