The Hyack Festival Association is taking another spin at holding a bike race in the streets of New Westminster.
In an effort to give the association sufficient time to plan and execute the event, New Westminster city council has provided early grant approval for the association’s Hyack Grand Prix bike race in the spring of 2017.
Council has approved $2,800 in cash and $14,000 in in-kind services, which is the same amount it approved in 2016 but didn’t give out because the event was cancelled.
Coun. Mary Trentadue said there were some challenges with the 2016 application and questioned how the city will deal with those this year.
“I think this could potentially be a great event,” she said. “It could be very successful. I’d like to know how we are going to work with Hyack to make sure it is successful this year.”
Michelle Dean, the city’s special events coordinator, said the city is working on a list of very clear conditions and is planning to get to them to Hyack as soon as possible so they can work together on the event. She said Hyack will be asked to fulfil the same conditions set out by the city as last year, but the conditions will be a lot clearer.
“They were asked to poll the neighbours and businesses who were directly affected by road closures,” she said of last year’s conditions. “The point of the poll was to ensure the residents and the businesses knew of the road closures. It wasn’t to get permission for the race. I think there was a misunderstanding. This year when we write out the conditions it will be the same conditions, we are just going to be a lot clearer.”
