Tour di Via Italia gets help from council, but still needs money
A long-running Windsor bicycle race will catch a break from the city that will keep some of its costs down, but its organizers say they are still scrambling to find the funds they need to make it a success.
The 57th annual Tour di Via Italia is taking place on Sept. 6, but how grand of an event it will be will depend on the support it can wrangle from sponsors.
The tour's chairman, Aldo Sfalcin, told reporters on Monday night that last year's race budget was in the neighbourhood of $22,000 — though that did not include prizes for contestants.
Sfalcin said he expects the budget needed for this year's tour will be in the same ballpark, but some prior sponsors have not been able to give as much as expected this time around.
"What we need are more sponsors," he said, noting that one sponsor in particular had fallen about $7,000 short of what the tour had been expecting.
Sfalcin made a passionate plea before council on Monday night, appealing for previously requested help based on the tour's history in Windsor and its benefits to the city.
The tour had formally asked for the city waive various permit and event-related fees, which it estimated to be in the neighbourhood of $1,300.
The city has a policy that guides its waiving of fees and provision of grants, which says that such assistance is supposed to be for exceptional circumstances and not an ongoing form of support for events. The tour, however, had $1,298 in fees waived last year and received a $5,000 sponsorship the year before that.
In the end, council unanimously agreed to provide some support to the tour, even if there were concerns about the event's eligibility for support from the city based on its existing policy.
"I couldn't emphasize more strongly that the Via Italia is a great event…it's very good from every possible point of view," said Coun. Hilary Payne. "I just have a problem with the waiving of the fees."
Coun. Irek Kusmierczyk even suggested that the city should look at finding of way of helping the tour on a permanent basis.
"The Tour di Via Italia has been around for 57 years and so it's more than just a sporting event — it's a cultural event and really it's an institution now in the City of Windsor," he told CBC News after Monday's council meeting.
Kusmierczyk noted that Windsor had recently spent $50,000 to sponsor the Detroit Grand Prix.
"We should be able to provide some of that funding here locally and help support organizations that provide such important sporting and cultural events that really put this city on the map," he said.
As to the larger funding issues the tour is facing, Sfalcin told reporters that the race will go forth no matter what.
He said that if the tour can't get the funding it is looking for, it will just cut back on extras.
"The race will go on, because we just take things away," he said.
