Now that the city of Hamilton receives all the revenues from the Flamboro Slots, Councillor Margaret McCarthy says the city owes her ward about $500,000.

McCarthy proposed the city create a trust fund for Flamborough that could provide a funding boost to local projects. The cost of the fund, which would operate similarly to the Taro Trust Fund in the former municipality of Stoney Creek, would be about $500,000. McCarthy even had a motion prepared, supported by Mountain Councillor Terry Whitehead, ready to be introduced to council last week. She said she had at least five other councillors ready to endorse her proposal.

“It would be a trust fund for Flamborough,” she said.

During a special committee of the whole meeting last week, councillors were compiling a wish list of their high-priority capital projects that could be funded from a special $5-million fund. Last year, the city used the money to build a recreation facility in the downtown Beasley neighbourhood.cil.

In 2007, when politicians threatened to eliminate the area-rating of Flamboro Slots revenue, McCarthy argued if Stoney Creek is allowed to keep its tipping fees from Philip Environmental (now called Newalta) after amalgamation to support the Taro Trust Fund, Flamborough should keep its casino revenue.

In 2007, $3.1 million out of the $4 million in total slots revenues was taken from Flamborough and used by the city and Ancaster to soften the expected higher taxes that year. The next year, the entire slots revenue that had been used to pay down the former town’s Borer’s Creek debt, was instead removed from the area-rating policy and dumped into the city’s general revenue stream.

The move reduced taxes in Hamilton in 2008, but  caused Flamborough residents’ taxes to balloon by, on average, 10 per cent.

The Taro fund is overseen by the Heritage Green Trust board of directors; the money is distributed to various organizations to help the local community.

McCarthy has argued that in 1999 Flamborough signed a written contract with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission that suggests council can’t take the slots revenue away from the town without receiving approval from the gaming commissioner.

Whitehead, who initially opposed McCarthy’s idea, now supports the idea of providing some compensation to Flamborough. He said the money would be used for local improvement projects.
McCarthy’s motion wasn’t accepted by councillors last week. Instead, city staff will review the idea, along with a number of other proposed infrastructure projects.

But Councillor Chad Collins urged staff to use the city’s own criteria for infrastructure projects as it reviews the requirements of the ideas. Under Collins’s suggestion, McCarthy’s proposal would not meet the city’s requirements.