White Rock council is taking a hands-on approach to the city’s annual sea festival – including calling for the final say in who organizes it – in the wake of a civic report indicating disorganization increased problems and costs for this year’s event.

Minutes released from a closed meeting last month reveal council has decided to issue a request for proposal for an event organizer for the festival – even though the Spirit of the Sea Festival has been run by the volunteer Community of Lights Event Society since the late 1990s.

An Oct. 6 report to council from leisure services director Rita Clarkson says the unusual step is necessary because current event organizers aren’t willing to commit to a city-imposed timeline of “deliverables” to qualify for city funding, staff co-operation and necessary rights-of-way and permits.

A subsequent email to council and city staff from Spirit of the Sea director Matt Todd – while contesting many of the report’s allegations about his team’s performance in 2009 – did not rule out the society organizing future festivals. It did, however, point out that if the city were to select another organizer, the name Spirit of the Sea would remain the property of the society.

That was confirmed last week by city manager Peggy Clark.

“We don’t know if another group would come forward to organize a festival on that August weekend,” Clark told Peace Arch News. “But if somebody else came forward, it may have a different name.”

The version of events offered by Clarkson – which suggests Spirit of the Sea organizers did not communicate plans to city staff in a timely manner, increasing costs, posing safety hazards and increasing risk to the city by leaving necessary paperwork to the last minute – was hotly disputed by Todd, both in a point-by-point refutation in his Oct. 24 email and in an interview last week.

“I find it offensive,” Todd said. “Our team feels they have been unfairly treated.”

But the former White Rock council member said he did not fault the intent of council’s motion to issue the request for proposal.

“If anybody has another idea of how to run a festival, they should be able to come forward,” said Todd, who has organized the past three festivals.

“It bruises our egos, because we feel like we’re doing a really good job, but, OK, it’s fair.”

A major reason for the city’s move to ask for a request for proposal, according to council and staff members, is that Spirit of the Sea received $48,365 from the city in 2009, considered the 60th anniversary year of sea-festival celebrations.

Clarkson’s report points out the contribution – in cash and in “in-kind sponsorship in the form of waived rental fees” and labour costs – is a significant increase from the $28,718 contributed by the city just two years ago.

“We, as a city, put in a huge investment to that festival,” Clark said. “We want to make sure we’re doing our job and that the organization is doing its job – to improve the entire process no matter who does the festival. When we finish the (request for proposals), we’re hoping the Community of Lights Society will put in a proposal, and we can go from there.”

The request for proposal criteria is to be posted this month, with interviews and final selection taking place in December.

Coun. Helen Fathers said part of the problem with the festival is that it is seen as a civic event.

“Everybody thinks it’s owned by the city. We feel as a city putting in so much, we should be putting in a set of criteria and making sure organizers meet the criteria.”

Clarkson said perception of the event as city-managed means the organization reflects directly on city leaders.

“With the current pressures on the city, we have to be looking at how we’re doing things, and better ways of doing things,” Mayor Catherine Ferguson told Peace Arch News. “Setting criteria is a healthy process.”

In her report, Clarkson says this year’s festival was well-attended by locals and visitors – and noted volunteer organizers had a difficult time finding corporate sponsorship and had to operate with very limited financial resources.

But her report paints a picture of disorganization leading to increased costs and concerns about safety and potential risk.

Among problems, she says, were concerns with “timeliness of information and requirements... resulting in internal disruption and confusion with communication, decisions/solutions, scheduling and workload.”

Right-of-way applications were not completed until two days before the event, the report states, and didn’t reflect what was needed – leading to conflicts between RCMP and organizers.

Safety issues included event staff interfering with RCMP roadblocks and “inappropriate and inexperienced volunteers” manning traffic barricades, Clarkson says. Risk to the city was increased, she says, by “untimely requests and general lack of advanced requirements.”

But while Todd acknowledged he is “not the best with punctuality” and “had some challenges getting them the paperwork they wanted when they wanted,” he bristled at suggestions organizers had not communicated their plans to city staff or that lateness of paperwork had jeopardized public safety.

He said a significant portion of increased city costs – $26,619 for RCMP presence, more than twice as much as in 2007 – was due to police being “obscenely overstaffed for the weekend.”

“That wasn’t our doing,” Todd said, noting shifting of events – the parade to Saturday, fireworks to Sunday – had been done to reduce the need for policing.

“We told them very early in the year don’t expect the same size crowd you had last year with the sandcastle contest,” he said.

Todd also said the society had communicated its intentions – such as its fireworks display – to city staff well in advance, but did not make specific applications until funding was in place.

“We told them right from the beginning we would have trouble meeting deadlines without enough staff,” he said.