Windsor councillors approve hiring of sports tourism co-ordinator

City councillors voted in favour last night of hiring a sports tourism co-ordinator, who will be tasked with attracting sporting events to Windsor.

Mayor Drew Dilkens says the city should be going after sporting events, as they bring in money for businesses in the city.

"We've proven that there is a significant return on the sports tourism investments that we've made,"Dilkens told CBC Radio's Windsor Morning in an interview, the morning after the vote at council.

"And council in their wisdom decided to assign a person, or allow us to hire a person using an already established budget, and try and bring in even more events to the community."

Coun. Irek Kusmierczyk lobbied against the position, calling it a waste of taxpayers'money.

"City councillors repeat the need over and over about the need to hold the line on taxes,"Kusmierczyk said at council on Monday night.

"Voting in favour of establishing a sports tourism office does exactly the opposite of that stated goal."

The councillor said the city should conduct a value-for-money audit of a series of major sports events it has hosted, so it can see what the economic impact was for Windsor.

"Only then should we begin the talk about spending additional funding on sports tourism,"Kusmierczyk said.

'Really, really disheartening'

The mayor said he believed that certain councillors opposed to sports tourism are hoping for events to fail, so they can be point out the flaws in pursuing these investments.

Dilkens was specifically critical of Kusmierczyk and Coun. RinoBortolin for opposing the hiring of asport tourism co-ordinator, which he said is a problem when they are both members of the city's tourism board.

"It's really, really disheartening,"said Dilkens.

The decision to hire a sports tourism official comes just a few days after council rejected the creation of a new auditor general position for Windsor.

"Unlike the auditor general debate, where quite frankly, there are very few communities in Ontario that have adopted that model, we know that all other communities that have sports facilities in the province and in the country are out seeking the sporting events that exist," Dilkens said. "And they do that because there is a return on the investment."