Coun. Mike McCann, who will attend his last city council meeting tonight, has shed a little more light on how any leftover funds from Barrie’s landmark sign could be spent.
McCann, who placed fourth in the Oct. 24 election of the next city mayor, said in a recent Facebook post that he raised more than $300,000 for the $200,000 Love Barrie sign located at Heritage Park. The post was titled ‘My message to the media.'
“We’re going to have some money left over and I’m not going to choose where that money’s spent and you are definitely not going to choose where that money is spent; the sponsors will choose how that money is going to be spent,” said McCann, Ward 10 councillor for the past eight years.
“So guys, there was some media coverage recently that there was like a dark cloud over my head if I didn’t publish the numbers,” he said of the financial details associated with the project. “I gotta tell ya, there isn’t a dark cloud over me. There’s a big shiny red heart that says Love Barrie and it shines brighter than the stars.”
McCann raised the money needed to design and construct the sign. On June 28, 2021, city council passed a motion that said any money raised on top of the $200,000 for the Heart (Love) Barrie sign, where no donation receipts have been issued, be donated to save the beaver and save the turtle programs in the city.
How to spend the extra money beyond design and construction costs, and for saving the beavers and turtles, is what McCann says will be decided by the sponsors and those who donated to the project.
“The finances will be published. We’re going to have a sponsorship recognition sometime in December and that’s when I will publish the numbers,” he said. “I owe it to the sponsors.”
McCann pointed to other privately funded projects on public property — the Spirit Catcher on Barrie’s waterfront, the Sea Serpent at Heritage Park and the Horn and the Heart sculpture at Memorial Square/Meridian Place as examples of similar projects.
“I had so many sponsors that want to be a part of this project, want to be a part of Love Barrie,” he said. “So why wouldn’t I take their money because we’re going to put it toward the sign, put it toward the turtles and put it toward some great charities or some great event here in Barrie supporting Love Barrie.”
McCann, who will be recognized tonight for his years of service on council, also had a message for the media on his Facebook post.
“So media, you wonder why we only have 30 per cent of the public coming out to vote for the municipal election,” he said, pointing to the 30.45 per cent turnout of eligible voters in the Oct. 24 city election.
“Don’t you think that maybe you’re responsible a little bit, that you keep on publishing negative stories, taking beautiful stories and putting dark clouds across them,” McCann said. “This Love Barrie story is amazing. You know the community came together and the generosity of all the sponsors came together to bring the Love Barrie sign.
“My advice is let’s start publishing some more positive stories media. We want to know Barrie is a loving community. We want to hear more positive stories and you know what, maybe we’ll get more than a 30 per cent turnout because people want to be engaged, because positivity … people are attracted to positivity. People are rejecting negativity,” he said in the Facebook post.
McCann has said the landmark sign is intended to unite Barrie — to help businesses by driving residents and visitors to the downtown and have them celebrate the city by being photographed with it.
A May 30, 2022 memo to Barrie councillors lists 12 $20,000 sponsors, 11 $10,000 sponsors and five $5,000 sponsors. That totals $375,000 for the fundraising campaign, although the memo doesn’t add up the contributions. McCann has said previously the total raised was closer to $300,000.
In June 2021, McCann said he collected harmonized sales tax (HST) from the fundraising dollars and sent it to the federal government. And he hired a professional accounting firm to prepare a spread sheet of money in and money out, which he said he would be sharing with the city’s finance department once all the money is collected.
The sign is located directly on the entry to Heritage Park, as people walk across Simcoe Street.
The sign was defaced overnight Sept. 18-19 with the words and symbols “Dirty $” and “CLEAN HANDS”, with a circled X and the words “BUT LIES” on the nearby concrete pavement. The city’s graffiti abatement program removed the words and symbols on the morning of Sept. 19.
Barrie city police said last week there were no updates or further information on the incident.
Council added $15,000 to the city’s operations department budget, beginning this year, to cover costs of potential graffiti removal and winter maintenance on and around the sign.
McCann faces a $200,000 lawsuit filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by a female city employee for alleged sexual assault and harassment. None of the allegations, which McCann has denied, have been tested in court.
