I try not to write about things that are currently unfolding; I don’t want to accidentally spread half-truths about matters that are not yet settled, or worse yet, accidentally say something publicly that I’m obligated to keep private. But council’s agenda tonight includes a matter that has been subject to an awful lot of misinformation, and perhaps I should have written this post much sooner.
Tonight we will be renewing the YMCA lease agreement, something that originally was supposed to happen in December. The Y leases space in a municipally-owned building, so setting the terms of the lease are part of our obligation as a landlord. When we originally considered the matter last fall, council asked staff to get a real estate appraisal to determine what market rate would be for leasing the building, a matter of ordinary due diligence; that delayed our decision to a December meeting. At that meeting, council had a few questions about the amount of rent subsidy the municipality provides to the Y ($30,000, plus an additional request for $10,000 for new equipment), in relation to the Grants in Aid budget (which limits grants to $20,000 per organization) and in relation to the Northumberland YMCA’s local fundraising (for which there appears to be none). There had been previous talk (back in 2018) of setting up a fundraising committee to ensure that local fundraising would also support the local Y, so that it was not solely dependent on subsidies raised through property taxes; that committee never materialized (I don’t know why), and it seems that the Y is still largely dependent on municipal subsidy, which is not a terribly sustainable situation. And so council asked for an update on that local fundraising, and has not yet received a response.
My thinking back in December had been that we would get an email the following week outlining the Y’s fundraising strategy for Brighton and we would approve the Y lease agreement at the following meeting. No email arrived, and it took until now to get the matter back on the agenda. I don’t know why it took this long, and I’m not interested in laying blame anywhere; my point in saying all of this is that the only thing holding up approving the lease agreement as it was in December is that we didn’t get the info we asked for. This is a very simple matter.
Local Activism
I LOVE local activism. I would love it if we had community feedback on nearly every issue, and if people attended meetings regularly I would feel like we had an engaged community committed to one another’s wellbeing. But I can’t make those comments without qualifying them: all of that is only true if we’re on the same page about what’s actually happening.
So I’ve been torn over the past few weeks. Councillors’ email inboxes have been filling up with impassioned pleas from community members who explain how important the YMCA is to their lives and their experience of Brighton. Staff have fielded numerous phone calls asking to bring delegations to council in support of the YMCA. I’ve received dozens of love letters to the Y, and to Brighton, and it makes me proud of our community. The only problem is that all of these love letters are responding to the idea that Council is going to evict the YMCA, or that the Y is somehow in danger. And that’s simply not true.
A few of the letters berate Council for our lack of sense and unwillingness to partner with the YMCA for the good of the community. I am pleased that there were only a few that were so aggressive and belligerent; these days we hear a lot about toxic politics, and I’m so proud that Brighton has so little of it that I can count it so easily. To everyone who sent me a positive letter trying to make the case for the Y’s continued existence in our community: thank you, this is what democracy truly looks like, and I appreciate you embodying it with your letters! Truly, democracy is expressing your values and hopes in public, and engaging with others to attempt to persuade them to your point of view. And to those who sent the nastier ones, I won’t hold it against you — I’m much more concerned with whoever is spreading the misinformation that made you feel you had to defend the Y from a nonexistent threat.
Misinformation
I’ve tried to track down the source of this letter-writing campaign, and eventually discovered that there had been posters put up at the YMCA urging people to write to council to support the Y. I don’t know the wording of the posters, because they’ve since been taken down; I just went and chatted with lovely YMCA staff who explained that they have removed the posters because they recognized that there was misinformation there.
We’re in a strange time for information and misinformation: we’re still used to looking to journalistic sources for good information, and we’ve become used to sharing information online, but with newspapers closing and so much misinformation available online it’s hard to know where to get the truth.
That’s where it’s handy that we live in a small town where everyone can actually just talk to one another. So many people reached out to try to convince us not to evict the YMCA; if the person who made that poster had done so first they would never have made the poster, and a lot of concern would not only be alleviated, it would never have come up in the first place.
So please, continue to email me about matters that concern you! And if you were planning on coming tonight to support the YMCA, and now realize there is no threat to it, please come anyway and participate in our local government. And if you ever hear something that sounds upsetting, please don’t hesitate to confirm if it’s true by reaching out to us directly. That’s one of the main reasons councillors exist, and we’re always happy to hear from you and clear the air. Because chances are, if something upsets you it probably upsets us too; we’re your neighbours, chosen from among you to represent your perspective. If it sounds outrageous and you can’t believe we would support it, it probably isn’t true.
Our meeting tonight will be in the Owen Gibb Hall at the King Edward Park Arena, starting at 6:30. See you there!