Responds to huge fee hike proposed for rinks, pools, fields

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Permit fees for rinks and sports fields will likely go up, but not by the average 21.5 per cent recommended by city recreation staff, says Mayor David Miller.

"The budget committee's going to review this, and that's normal in the budget process for the committee to review this," said Miller Wednesday morning. "Are matters going to be changed? This is one of the only issues that needs to be addressed. It's $2 million in an $8.2 billion budget. There's a very important issue, but a small one that needs to be addressed monetarily and it will be."

Miller made the comments two days after it was revealed that parks staff was proposing to get $2 million in additional revenue by increasing the fees that are charged to sports teams and groups leasing ice rinks and sports fields.

The revelation angered some councillors and sports organizations, in large part because when the city began consultation on Everybody Gets to Play, a policy that would raise fees on recreation programs by about 20 per cent, senior staff indicated that permit fees wouldn't be included.

However, the permit fee increase nearly matches the increase to program fees in Everybody Gets To Play, and budget documents make it clear that the revenue from the permit increases will help finance other aspects of Everybody Gets To Play.

Miller denied that the confusion was a deliberate attempt to keep the permit increases hidden.

"I'm very sorry, I do not accept that any of this was being hidden," he said. "It wasn't - this was a problem that needed to be addressed. And it will, through the budget committee."

Ward 34 (Don Valley East) Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong said the mayor ought to simply seize the issue from the budget committee and stop the increases himself.

"He's the mayor - he could end this debate today," Minnan-Wong said. "This is a very important issue to all Torontonians. They want to know where the mayor stands."

Ward 31 (Beaches-East York) Councillor Janet Davis said the city should also look at the Everybody Gets To Play policy, and the fee increases included there.

"I believe the decision to move to a 50 per cent cost recovery of permit fees is a policy discussion that should have occurred long before the budget discussion," she said. "It's a major policy decision and it shouldn't be determined through the budget process. We should have had a public debate on whether or not to move to that level of cost recovery, rather than find it in the back pages of the budget binders."