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My name is Scott Bird, and I am responsible for this new project called Grimsby BIA Watch.
This website was not created because someone is looking for a fight with the Grimsby Downtown BIA. It developed because rumours started circulating that did not always match the clean version of events appearing in agendas, minutes, and public presentations.
Grimsby BIA Watch did not stumble onto a story and then go searching for sources. It happened the other way around. The information came first. Beginning in 2024, an unnamed source within the Grimsby Downtown BIA Board began leaking information. Once the board hired a new Executive Director, other sources familiar with the former Oshawa and Niagara Falls BIA's also shared information. Different sources, different histories, but enough overlap to make Grimsby impossible to ignore.
That is how BIA Watch was built. Information from inside pointed toward records worth finding, numbers worth checking, and public explanations that deserved another look. The source has been careful about what is shared, and we have been equally careful about what gets published. Nothing that could identify the individual will appear here. The information is not treated as proof simply because it came from inside. It tells us where to dig.
And the digging has produced some extraordinary findings.
Since 2023, the BIA has accumulated 20 documented closed sessions. Those are only the private discussions the public can actually count. They do not include Board related emails, text messages, or conversations that never appear on an agenda and never make it into the minutes. Information coming from inside indicates that merchant complaints, criticism, and strategies for dealing with those concerns have also been discussed privately, leaving the eventual public record considerably cleaner than the conversations behind it.
By the time the Town and BIA formalized their relationship through a Memorandum of Understanding in 2025, the warning signs were already there. Closed sessions had become routine, important discussions were occurring outside the public record, and the BIA’s operations were rapidly expanding. The MOU was an opportunity to establish meaningful safeguards around transparency and accountability. A year later, merchants are still trying to determine who is supposed to enforce them.
During the same period, the BIA became dramatically more expensive. According to the BIA's financial statements (1), total expenses climbed from $58,777 in 2023 to $226,471 in 2025, an increase of 285 percent. Special event spending increased 301 percent, while advertising and promotion rose 228 percent. Salaries and benefits went from zero in 2023 to $108,561 in 2025, while accumulated surplus fell almost 57 percent, from $189,351 to $82,052. By June 30, 2026, the BIA had already spent $96,508 in wages against an $85,200 budget for the entire year.
Those numbers did not come from a whistleblower. They came from the BIA's own financial records.
The problem with the Memorandum of Unaccountability (MOU) is not that it created the transparency gap. It is that the Town formalized its relationship with the BIA after the warning signs were already there, yet the agreement appears to have done little to correct them. The BIA accountability problem was not discovered after the MOU was signed. It was already visible when the Town approved it.
Information from inside the Board helps identify where the official record may be incomplete, where public explanations deserve to be tested against the documents, and where legitimate merchant concerns were discussed privately before fading from the public record.
The Board has had closed sessions, private communications, and conversations merchants never heard while overseeing one of the largest increases in spending in the history of the Grimsby BIA.
And for more than two years, someone inside that Board has been making sure Grimsby BIA Watch knows where to look.
That is not a rumour.
That is how this website got started.
1. (2024-12-31 GDBIA Year End Financials, 2026-08-12 GDBIA Agenda)
This website was not created because someone is looking for a fight with the Grimsby Downtown BIA. It developed because rumours started circulating that did not always match the clean version of events appearing in agendas, minutes, and public presentations.
Grimsby BIA Watch did not stumble onto a story and then go searching for sources. It happened the other way around. The information came first. Beginning in 2024, an unnamed source within the Grimsby Downtown BIA Board began leaking information. Once the board hired a new Executive Director, other sources familiar with the former Oshawa and Niagara Falls BIA's also shared information. Different sources, different histories, but enough overlap to make Grimsby impossible to ignore.
That is how BIA Watch was built. Information from inside pointed toward records worth finding, numbers worth checking, and public explanations that deserved another look. The source has been careful about what is shared, and we have been equally careful about what gets published. Nothing that could identify the individual will appear here. The information is not treated as proof simply because it came from inside. It tells us where to dig.
And the digging has produced some extraordinary findings.
Since 2023, the BIA has accumulated 20 documented closed sessions. Those are only the private discussions the public can actually count. They do not include Board related emails, text messages, or conversations that never appear on an agenda and never make it into the minutes. Information coming from inside indicates that merchant complaints, criticism, and strategies for dealing with those concerns have also been discussed privately, leaving the eventual public record considerably cleaner than the conversations behind it.
By the time the Town and BIA formalized their relationship through a Memorandum of Understanding in 2025, the warning signs were already there. Closed sessions had become routine, important discussions were occurring outside the public record, and the BIA’s operations were rapidly expanding. The MOU was an opportunity to establish meaningful safeguards around transparency and accountability. A year later, merchants are still trying to determine who is supposed to enforce them.
During the same period, the BIA became dramatically more expensive. According to the BIA's financial statements (1), total expenses climbed from $58,777 in 2023 to $226,471 in 2025, an increase of 285 percent. Special event spending increased 301 percent, while advertising and promotion rose 228 percent. Salaries and benefits went from zero in 2023 to $108,561 in 2025, while accumulated surplus fell almost 57 percent, from $189,351 to $82,052. By June 30, 2026, the BIA had already spent $96,508 in wages against an $85,200 budget for the entire year.
Those numbers did not come from a whistleblower. They came from the BIA's own financial records.
The problem with the Memorandum of Unaccountability (MOU) is not that it created the transparency gap. It is that the Town formalized its relationship with the BIA after the warning signs were already there, yet the agreement appears to have done little to correct them. The BIA accountability problem was not discovered after the MOU was signed. It was already visible when the Town approved it.
Information from inside the Board helps identify where the official record may be incomplete, where public explanations deserve to be tested against the documents, and where legitimate merchant concerns were discussed privately before fading from the public record.
The Board has had closed sessions, private communications, and conversations merchants never heard while overseeing one of the largest increases in spending in the history of the Grimsby BIA.
And for more than two years, someone inside that Board has been making sure Grimsby BIA Watch knows where to look.
That is not a rumour.
That is how this website got started.
1. (2024-12-31 GDBIA Year End Financials, 2026-08-12 GDBIA Agenda)
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