A request from the festival's board of directors to waive the fees, including permit costs, labour fees and equipment rentals, was a late addition to the agenda at Tuesday's general committee meeting.

It was narrowly approved when called to question.

But what the board probably hoped would be rubber-stamped was criticized by several councillors, who said the request for the Oct. 3-5 event was very late coming and put a city facing financial stresses on the spot.

"These kinds of things are kind of becoming a little bothersome to me," said Coun. Mark Dzugan.

He questioned members from the board in attendance on how the board was operated, if the festival could ever be moved from Welland to another Niagara city and if the festival makes any monetary contributions directly to the city coffers.

Festival co-chair Andre Roy said the festival is a not-for-profit corporation and any profits from revenue are reinvested into the event and that there are no plans to relocate.

"It's working for us," said Roy. "It's a great location."

As for city benefits, he said Welland isn't paid directly, but "I think the city benefits from having some 65,000 people visit the city."

Dzugan also wondered why the fee waiving was necessary since the municipality already allocated $90,000 to the festival at budget time. Roy added that the event also received a provincial grant for about $71,000.

"We're here to help our city grow and prosper and become more popular across the region and across the province," said Roy in the festival's defense. "For us to be doing this for the city and not being helped by the city is not the perfect situation, I believe."

He added that the festival, viewed as being on the financial brink early last year, was very successful in 2007, greatly helping the event with its goal to becoming self-sustaining.

Coun. Frank Campion said the same process of a late request for fee waiving occurred last year.

"What's bothering me is it's always coming up right before the festival," said Campion.

Coun. Sandy O'Dell said he thought the city had a policy where the city advertised for all grant requests or fee removal requests to be submitted at once, then prioritized and brought to council.

"If we do this, than we're going against our own policy, is that not correct?" O'Dell asked.

City manager Craig Stirtzinger confirmed that policy had been discussed earlier this year, but staff hadn't developed it fully yet.

O'Dell was also concerned about spending taxpayer money when the city was facing more than 1,000 job losses.

"Like Councillor Dzugan said, things just aren't the same anymore, and they're going to get worse," he said.

Coun. Pat Chiocchio said he agreed with O'Dell in thinking a grant policy was in place, and wondered why the festival needed more money when the city grant of $90,000 was almost doubled from the year before.

"We gave them $47,000 last year and that's when we thought they were in trouble," said Chiocchio.

The approval narrowly passed, with Mayor Damian Goulbourne and councillors Leo Van Vliet and Rocky Letourneau absent. The vote was not recorded.