Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Centre Facilities Inc. (HECFI) Implementation Sub-Committee
August 19/04 Report

Councillors present:
Terry Whitehead, Murray Ferguson and Dave Mitchell (I did not recognize any of the others)

At 2:25PM I realized that the meeting wasn't going to be in the Council Chambers, and went to Room 110, where the meeting was already in session. Due to the seating arrangements, and the poor acoustics of that room, it was with great difficulty hearing what was said. It didn't help that they had already started, and I couldn't locate an agenda beforehand, and didn't see any extras lying about in the room. I was the only observer there, and I had the distinct feeling that they weren't use to having an audience. They seemed to get over it after awhile, and Councillor Murray Ferguson (who was chairing) saw to it that I was provided with an agenda, and later on Councillor Terry Whitehead offered me a cup of coffee. The meeting ended at about 3:50PM. Next meeting is September 9, 2004 and the agenda is Shareholder's Objectives.

This meeting was a Continuation of Discussions-Shareholders Direction, with the focus on developing an Expression of Interest (EOI) for consideration of council, as a preliminary step to the issue of Request for Proposal (RFP) regarding the operation and management of HECFI.

"Preamble

The Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Facilities Inc. (HECFI) is a not-for-profit corporation existing under the Ontario Business Corporations Act. The City of Hamilton is the sole shareholder of HECFI and through this Direction establishes certain principles of governance relating to HECFI. The HECFI Board is accountable to the citizens of Hamilton through the Shareholder."

From the minutes of the previous meeting: it was suggested by Terry Whitehead that since Council has already approved the Mandate and the KPMG Final Report then people should be coming forward to comment on our set goals and objectives.

"Mandate
The purpose of HECFI is to generate economic and tourism activity in the City while profiting community benefits through the management of its facilities.

Subject to the ongoing ability of HECFI to meet the objectives of the Shareholder set out in this Direction, and the ability of the Board to demonstrate the same, HECFI may engage in any of the following business activities:

1. Maintain, operate, manage and promote the City's assets within its mandate, including Hamilton Convention Centre, Hamilton Place Theatre and the Copps Coliseum;
2. Engage in partnerships to leverage key market opportunities for the City; and,
3. (this was added->) Seek to reach financial self-sustainability."

There was a discussion around RFP (local) and OIP (?)(wide-spread), and how they should go about selecting a short-list. Murray Ferguson suggested that if it's a tie between say "Dave Braley" (sp?) and a company from the states then the local should get it. Terry Whitehead mentioned some agreement: the Roday Deal (sp?) and Hamilton. A few mentioned that they didn't hear of this before. Whitehead said it was made public that it was a leasing arrangement with an NHL team and there was a signed draft. Someone else said that that should be made clear to potential bidders.

There was also some discussion on what was the best way to inform Council on changes - info only?, re-approval?

The last half of the meeting was spent further developing the EOI. Someone mentioned that they were still working with the old mandate and not with the new. (There was changes made in the last meeting, according to the minutes, but none of these changes had been incorporated into the EOI)

"Expression of Interest

The City of Hamilton is currently looking at options to operate and manage the HECFI facilities.

Objective for the expression of interest

The objectives of this request are to identify qualified firms and/or teams that are interested in responding to an invitational Request for Proposal to:

1. Develop a comprehensive cost sharing agreement for the operation and management of the HECFI facilities, which reduces or eliminates the financial contributions from the City of Hamilton, while still maintaining the current mandate.
2. Determine a short list of respondents to respond to a Request for Proposal.
3. Administer the comprehensive cost sharing agreement of behalf of the City of Hamilton" .