THUNDER BAY — A decision on whether to dissolve Thunder Bay’s sister cities program, part of a larger effort by city council to cut spending in the face of financial challenges, will be on city council’s agenda Monday.
The program is one of two dozen city services that were put on the chopping block as city council looks to find $1.5 million in permanent spending cuts, on top of another $700,000 or so in permanent staffing cuts.
Some cuts already approved through that process include eliminating event fireworks and movie nights, downsizing the playgrounds program, ending maintenance at 13 parkettes, cutting a Current River EMS station, reducing hours at outdoor pools, and scaling back litter pick-up.
The sister cities committee was one of a handful of items council declined to cut in the face of public pushback, instead hitting pause and ordering consultations.
The committee has defended its value before, after a 2020 program and services review recommended dissolving it and instead appointing an employee to maintain sister city relationships through technology, rather than travel.
The city spends $25,000 on the sister cities program annually. The review found the city could save $18,000 a year by dissolving the committee and handing downsized duties to a staffer, though council could also decide to drop it entirely.
Matthew Villella, chair of the committee, said while its members believe strongly in the value of their work, they have little stomach for publicly defending it again when cuts to core city services are also being considered.
“Yes, it’s nice to have a sister cities committee, but when there’s other things on the table that are getting cut, like movies in the park, like parkettes not getting serviced, how can we justify as a committee that we’re going to move forward?” he asked.
That sentiment led the committee to recommend its own dissolution in a vote held in late June, though Villella called that more a sign of frustration and resignation than anything else.
“The best case scenario is I go and say the committee wants to dissolve, and the councillors say, no, go back to work — and we will go back to work and represent this community as we have for the last 20 years,” he said.
“The committee is fed up with the fact that we always end up on the list [of proposed cuts], and we can’t effectively do our work as ambassadors of the City of Thunder Bay.”
Thunder Bay currently has five sister cities: Duluth and Little Canada in Minnesota, Seinajoki in Finland, Jiaozuo in China, and Gifu City in Japan.
Advocates say the program builds cross-cultural understanding and cooperation, and argue it also brings economic benefits.
Villella, an instructor at Confederation College, said he’s confident the program delivers a good return on investment on the $25,000 yearly spend.
He said the committee had used a Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission formula to estimate that return in 2019, concluding the 70 people who visited Thunder Bay as part of sister cities delegations that year contributed more than $73,000 to the local economy.
“We bring many guests in to the city who spend money in our community, and who come back regularly with their families on trips,” he said. “We never promote it, but it happens more than you’d think.”
The committee has faced repeated questions over its value in recent years, in the 2020 program and services review and again during the 2023 budget process.
Charla Robinson, president of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce — a vocal advocate for the 2020 review and reducing city spending suggested the sister cities decision could be a litmus test for council’s resolve.
“It seems to me we’re at a bit of a breaking point, where citizens [and] the business community are saying we can’t afford more taxes, and we need council and administration to really look at, what is the return on the investment and what is the value we’re getting for our tax dollars?” she said.
“That may mean some difficult choices need to be made, because we can’t continue to do everything for everyone.”
Robinson called the sister cities decision a question of “needs versus wants,” suggesting there is little firm data to demonstrate the program’s value.
“While the chamber doesn’t particularly have an opinion on any individual thing, we believe the experts have shown that this is a [cut] that is low-impact,” she said.
“Certainly there’s been great work done by the committee, but let’s look at the value of the money that’s being spent by the city and the value to the tax payers… It appears the sister cities can’t really prove its value, so that is why this keeps coming up, and I think it’s time to make a decision and move forward.”
Villella said the recurring possibility of dissolution has made it difficult for the committee to do its work. It has passed on upcoming opportunities for delegations and cancelled a trip by a group from Duluth that was set for July, he reported.
“It’s really hard to plan something and then two or three months down the road, not be there. That would be very embarrassing for the community,” he said.
While he understands the financial challenges facing the city, Villella said he’s worried about the response.
“We’ve made some cuts that are going to impact people, impact our families,” he said. “It’s scary. If we keep going this route — I understand they have to find cuts, I understand we have to be more fiscally responsible, but I think we are looking at the wrong areas.”
