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Niagara Falls Council Approves Queen Street BIA Budget and Levy

Niagara Falls City Council has approved the Queen Street BIA's budget for next year.

They also approved a levy of $390,248 which is an 86 percent increase when compared to 2020.

Multiple business owners wrote letters to City Hall against this and Councillor Carolynn Ioannoni says they're all successful anchor businesses.

"They're businesses that have stayed and not disappeared and I really think that the BIA needs to respect those anchor businesses, listen to the objections they have and go back and reconsider this."

The BIA says the budget will prepare the downtown core for life after COVID once a vaccine available.

Councillor Chris Dabrowski brought the motion forward to pass the budget.

"I just hope that the businesses can come together, they're not going to agree with everything that the board comes up with including maybe this budget however you have to give people a chance. 2021 will be a great year, we will recover but we have to start planning now and that's what I think the BIA needs to do."

The opposed businesses were also against how the virtual AGM was conducted two weeks ago.

They say there were technical problems and not everyone was able to call in.

When asked to weigh in regarding the meetings process, City Clerk Bill Matson says stated the following.

"I've never been involved administratively as far as promotion of the meeting or in this case setting up that meeting virtually. I think we've seen over the months even the challenges that we've faced here trying to set up a meeting virtually and the number of times there were speakers not able to get through. That's beyond our control."

He adds city staff have never been involved with the Queen Street BIA or any BIA's administrative process.

Councillor Ioannoni was the only councillor to vote against the motion.

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