City council is taking over all nine of the Business Improvement Associations in Windsor.
Council is putting a pause on the appointment of any board members to the various BIAs for the next 60 days to allow city administration to develop a set of basic uniform governance and procedural rules for all of the associations.
The rules that would be brought back to council for consideration include how membership is determined, how elections are conducted, the manner of selecting board members, the resignation of members, the determination of when a member's seat becomes vacant, the filling of vacancies, how verifications are undertaken, and how financial matters are handled.
The decision to temporarily take control of the nine BIAs was made during an in-camera meeting of council on Monday evening.
Larry Horwitz, Chair of the Wyandotte Town Centre BIA, says all BIAs are funded by the building owners within the boundary of a given BIA and those are the members.
He alleges there's been problems with some people being selected for boards but not actually being paying members of the association.
"Who votes in board elections, where money goes in terms of, is there any conflicts in the types of money and how much money and who gets certain monies from the BIAs. I think that needs to be clarified," he says.
Horwitz says the BIAs need guidelines.
"Council is correct, the mayor and city council in moving forward and creating those guidelines to better direct the BIAs to be fairer and more transparent to its membership and the city as a whole," he says.
Horwitz says he expects fairness and transparency and in the end, that's what we should have.
"It's become the wild, wild west when it comes to the some BIAs," he says. "I think you need to make sure that things are not going in the wrong direction. This will put some guidelines in place and controls in place."
While city administration develops the proposed new rules, expenses that would normally require approval of the various BIA boards must be submitted to city council for approval.
Council also approved the release of an interim payment up to 50 per cent of last year's levy to support business expenditures funded and approved within the 2022 BIA levy.
The nine BIAs in Windsor are:
Downtown Windsor BIA
Ford City BIA
Walkerville BIA
Olde Riverside BIA
Sandwich BIA
Ottawa Street BIA
Pillette Village BIA
Erie Street BIA
Wyandotte Town Centre BIA