CTV News: The Premier announced today that municipalities would be receiving four billion dollars in funding to help with COVID-19 relief. What is your reaction to that?
Mayor Lehman: Well, a sense of relief. Mayors across the country have been pushing provincial governments and the federal government now for over two months, saying that restarting the economy and managing COVID has resulted in considerable lost revenue and additional costs for cities who are on the front lines of delivering services.
In particular, transit ridership has plunged, so have revenues. There have been a lot of additional requirements in terms of cleaning and sanitizing everything from city facilities to playgrounds to buses. So we're relieved that a deal has been reached. Still looking for some of the details, but we got some additional detail today, and it looks as though that will go a long way towards covering some of the costs we incurred during COVID.
CTV News: Two billion - or half of that money has been earmarked for transit. How do you feel about that?
Mayor Lehman: Transit revenues in Barrie, that's fares and passes, are typically about six million dollars annually, and obviously we're expecting -with us having offered free transit for almost four months, as well as significant reductions in anticipated ridership even for the balance of 2020 - much of that six million dollars is not going to materialize. So that is probably the largest single bucket for us; although there are other costs, we're still incurring, of course, and there are concerns about our revenues going forward. That's everything from recreation centre fees; that's another piece that's been zero for about four months now. So when we tally it all up at the end of the year, we will be looking to this fund to be able to support some of those costs.
CTV News: You have been vocal about needing this extra money from the province. Can you give us some more specifics on where that need is and where you would like to see the city spend that money once it does come in?
Mayor Lehman: Sure, well, we're just trying to avoid having a deficit and having to raise property taxes to compensate. Of course, one of the challenges for municipalities is we don't want to go and up the rates for transit and fees for rec centres and property taxes. We know that people are going to be struggling with their budgets, especially if, as anticipated, there's an economic impact on the balance of the year from COVID.
But some of the specific costs for the city surround additional cleaning and sanitizing, the additional protocols that are required for transit, the installation of safety equipment, the purchase of PPE; and let's not forget the city runs the police department, the fire department, or at least we fund those services. They have had significant additional costs associated with dealing with COVID. Last and not least: public health. Who's been at the forefront of trying to combat COVID? Our public health unit. Public health is partially funded by area municipalities. So we see all of those costs coming together, and in many cases, we won't know the total cost until we're all the way through this, and of course, we're still in it.
CTV News: Last week, you responded to the Premiers comments that Barrie was price-gouging because of the increased parking costs for non-residents. Have you heard from the province since you put out your statement?
Mayor Lehman: No, I haven't heard from the Premier's Office, but I have heard from MPP Doug Downey, our area MPP, who is an excellent representative, and he and I have worked well together. I appreciated his very balanced comments, I thought, on Friday around this matter, and he and I did talk about this issue. You know, of course, we're not trying to profit here or price gouge. The point of this is to mitigate some of the overcrowding we've seen at Barrie beaches. That's been a running story now for four or five weeks, I think. And admittedly as well, when folks come to the city, if they use our facilities, unfortunately, we have seen a lot of garbage left behind, those sorts of issues - and those are real costs.
Yes, to some extent, the parking fees help us recoup the costs, but let's be frank - if we're successful at deterring some of those out of town visitors from coming to our beaches, we're not going to see that revenue anyways. So, this was hardly about some big profit for the municipality during COVID - just the opposite. This is an attempt to help keep our beaches safe.
CTV News: Finally, Barrie has been in Stage 3 for ten days now - what are you hearing from businesses - and what still needs to be done to boost the local economy?
Mayor Lehman: We've seen many businesses start to reopen. It's been a challenge for many of them, some of them have had to purchase PPE or put up plexiglass shields of sneeze guards, all of those sorts of things. It depends very much on how you work and how you change that work to keep your employees safe and your customers safe.
So for some, it took extra time to open. They didn't just open on the day they were allowed to. They may have taken additional time. We received very few complaints about businesses. So one of the ways I can judge this is, 'Did our bylaw folks get a lot of calls complaining about businesses that people felt weren't implementing things from the mask order to sanitization.' We received very very few complaints, so I believe our businesses are doing the best they can under the circumstances, and it's gone reasonably well. That being said, there are specific types of businesses in particular that have suffered the most; anything where people gathered in-person to participate in a gym class, or use a facility or come in for treatment, and they were not able to do that.
Even today, those businesses are not able to come back to full capacity. I think particularly of restaurants where you know. They've had to thin out their dining room so substantially that it makes it tough or less economical to operate.
There are measures in our economic recovery plan that we've tried to introduce to help them come back; practical things like kits, social distancing stickers, face shields, and things like that. But really, our effort now is to get the message out that it is safe to come back to use Barrie businesses. And for people to shop local.
It makes a huge difference for you to buy those few things you need at a store that is locally owned or run, rather than from an online store that might deliver using shipping. So, if you can do that, that's how everyone out there can help our businesses recover.
