Burlington Road Nationals needs your help

The group that won the right to host the Canadian Road Cycling Championships in Burlington in 2011 and 2012 needs the support of area riders June 23. Midweek cycling club’s Craig Fagan, who is the man behind the successful bid to host the championships, is looking for riders to come out to Burlington City Council in an effort to get city staff to give final approval to the events.

 Here is the information from the Midweek Club:

If you want the Nationals to be in Burlington in 2011 & 2012, attend Burlington City Council at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 23 at Burlington City Hall on Brant St.  We need your body present in the Council Chamber as a physical show of support!

All six City of Burlington Councillors in the last two weeks have indicated a desire host the Nationals, but a staff report is recommending withdrawing the previously-agreed to by council condition of bid (police services and municipal services estimated at $70,000 per year) and replace it with a $3,000 grant and all municipal services as charge backs. They feel the charge back for garbage will be around $25,000. They are trying to hit us with municipal services that we have no need of.

Errors and miss-statements are also contained in the Staff Report. Example: lack of courses, which only changed from December 2009 versions in May 2010 due to police change of policy. The areas of course awaiting approval are outside of City of Burlington boundaries and thus not in the jurisdiction of City of Burlington. (Councillors received all revised courses in our most recent status of event meetings.) On June 11, staff advised us for the first time that routes won’t be part of the report going to Council (June 11 was the report date). Reason: need permits from other municipalities for courses in their areas and need parking plan for each course which must include letters of permission to use property for parking. This was the first time we heard of these conditions. That said, we are one year out from race date, permitting for these revised courses in non-Burlington territory is in process (some of it conditional on Burlington approving their portion of the course) and one can’t get written permission to use parking space without first having municipal event approval.

Planning is done, we are now into the fine detail like which farmer will rent us a field for parking. There is no City of Burlington cash outlay until well after all outstanding issues are resolved. And let’s not forget that the deal was for police costs and municipal services, we cover all other expenses including the seed money. Staff wants to delay approval until Jan 2011, a date much too late for solicitation of sponsorship. We can’t wait. We need approval now. We need Burlington to live up to their commitment.

If you happen to be away on business, live too far away from Burlington to attend or travelling to Edmonton for the 2010 Nationals, please e-mail a note of support by 5 p.m. Tuesday, June 22 to:

Mayor Cam Jackson and Council: mayorjackson@burlington.ca; Councillor Craven cravenr@burlington.ca; Councillor Peter Thoem thoemp@burlington.ca; Councillor John Taylor taylorj@burlington.ca; Councillor Jack Dennison dennisonj@burlington.ca; Councillor Rick Goldring goldringr@burlington.ca; Councillor Carol D’Amelio damelioc@burlington.ca.