Council approves new mandate, changes for REAL

City council passed a resolution supporting six recommendations on the future of the Regina Exhibition Association Ltd.

Among them were recommendations from administration that the city continue to run REAL as a municipal corporation and approve a refreshed business model for the organization. The latter would include testing the marketplace through a competitive tendering process for management of concerts and touring events, and exploring outsourcing of commercial development.

Also approved was a recommendation that the interim REAL board formalize a board renewal sub-committee to define the organization’s mandate and identify and recommend new candidates for the board.

There was also direction to administration to work with REAL on a short-term financial plan, to be presented to council by Sept. 30. That would address management and finding of capital and maintenance for REAL facilities, the structure of REAL’s debt and line of credit, revenue optimization and cost saving opportunities. Administration is also to report back by that date on the necessary changes to governance documents.

The motion followed up on the business model review report from consulting firm MNP titled “A Sustainable Fresh Start.” That was presented to Executive Committee the previous week.

The council decision settles for the immediate future the issue of what happens with REAL, after months of financial and management turmoil.

That turmoil included the replacement of the entire elected board members by a new board, followed by the removal of former CEO Tim Reid. REAL was then dealt a further blow when it was ordered to pay back $8 million in COVID relief payments following an audit by Canada Revenue Agency.

Roberta Engel, the acting president and CEO of REAL, pledged to get the organization back on a path to sustainability in her appearance to council Wednesday. She spoke largely in favour of the changes being proposed, as she had done the previous week at Executive Committee.

Engel made it clear that righting the ship at REAL will take time.

“The situation that REAL finds itself in today did not happen overnight,” Engel explained.

“Debt has been incurred since 2017 supporting capital investment in the property and recovery from the pandemic, and an appreciation of this is going to take some time for REAL to fully recover.”

She said REAL will need debt, capital and operating funding for the foreseeable future.

“While we aim to reduce operational funding dependency, this transition will take time,” she said.

The final resolution passed 7-3, and was in line with what had been approved last week at Executive Committee. But it was a winding road to get to the final decision.

Councillor Jason Mancinelli made an extensive amending motion with a provision that would have disbanded the current REAL board and have REAL management report directly to council until a new board is approved in September. But the votes on those amendments narrowly failed to pass, with Councillor Dan LeBlanc saying council wasn’t equipped for that role.

LeBlanc then tried a tabling motion of his own, which also failed. Finally, Councillor Andrew Stevens moved to accept the report as brought forward from Executive Committee and that was finally passed at council.

The REAL change was one of only a few major decisions to come out of the Wednesday meeting. Several agenda items were tabled to future meetings as council struggled to keep up with a huge backlog of items to be dealt with before the current term ends.

Among the items pushed to future meetings were the Central Library Renewal Project’s debt financing and library mill rate increase request, the Saskatchewan Drive Corridor Plan, and a motion from Councillor Terina Nelson on council establishing respectful communications towards the city manager and city staff. A potential notice of motion on a new baseball facility for the Regina Red Sox also failed to get to the floor.

Council did manage to get through presentations from all the scheduled delegations regarding a motion for a name change for Dewdney Avenue, but that motion did not get to a vote and will come back to council in August.