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The city ‘spends more money paving one block of street than they do on all the culture for the whole year in the city,’ laments arts council official
Earlier this year, the city’s manager of culture, Jacqueline Surette, left her position, and the city has since downsized the role and hired a culture coordinator.
Orillia & District Arts Council (ODAC) board member, Mike Bailey, said Surette was able to operate with a degree of autonomy, and served as a strong advocate for the arts around city hall.
“Jacqueline was really a strong voice for us, and I’m not saying (the culture coordinator) won’t be, but what happened was she was a very strong voice and she took that into the city over a period of time,” Bailey told OrilliaMatters.
Bailey said Surette, as a department manager, was able to operate with relative autonomy – something he worries may be diminished through the new position.
“The city still has their fingers in the pie,” he said. “If (the city) approves it, then this coordinator’s responsibility will be to make sure that it meets the city standards, what the city wants, not what the (art) group wants.”
Despite the change in the city’s culture department, and Surette’s departure, Bailey does not see the relationship between the city and the local arts community changing too much.
“As strong as her voice was, they weren’t listening,” Bailey said.
For fellow ODAC board member, Dennis Rizzo, the change signals the city moving even further away from promoting the arts for the sake of the arts.
“With the downsizing, I don’t see that role changing much, but what I do see happening is less of an emphasis on pure arts and culture, and more of an emphasis on economic tourism,” Rizzo told OrilliaMatters.
For Rizzo, however, the city’s commitment to the arts was not strong to begin with.
“If we look at the budgets for the different projects, let’s say Culture Days … the budgets are about the same as they were (in the past), and they were pretty sparse to begin with,” he said. “I mean, in reality, the cultural budget for the City of Orillia, they spend more money paving one block of street than they do on all the culture for the whole year in the city.”
The city funding that’s available for the arts is not enough to cover the expenses for many events, and Bailey said local arts groups rely on spending considerable time chasing down grants to fund local initiatives.
“We might get what I’ll call a token amount of $1,500 – just using that as a figure – $1,500 doesn’t really cover anything,” Bailey said. “ODAC runs specifically on (Rizzo) putting in 40-50 hours a week, applying for grants from different things.”
For example, ODAC’s popular HeARTS (helping elders with arts) program ran earlier this year, and included dance, visual arts in a variety of mediums, and lectures on art history for local seniors, and relied on funding from the federal government’s New Horizons for Seniors program.
Rizzo, who formerly worked as a grant writer in New Jersey, said the situation is relatively difficult here in Orillia.
“A lot of work goes into applying for grants up here that, the grant people I used to work with down there … wouldn’t even bother applying for it because the amount of time and effort you put into it isn’t worth what you’re actually getting from it,” he said.
“The city has a grant program for events and activities that’s $1,500 up to $2,500 – you can probably do one small thing with that. That’s it. Anything larger, they don’t have a fund for it,” he said.
“You go through city council, you have to go through the whole political process to get some funding for it, which is why we’ve started putting a lot more federal and provincial grants,” Rizzo explained.
A part of the issue with arts funding, Rizzo said, is that each arts group operates within its own ‘silo’, individually pursuing grants to bolster any funding they can get from the city – while the city “enjoys the benefits” of local arts programming.
“(City halls) wants it to be a cultural destination, but they rely on each of the silos to do their own marketing. They rely on each of the silos to do their own fundraising,” he said.
Rizzo hopes to ultimately see ODAC serve as something of an umbrella organization for local arts groups, and he pointed to Prince Edward County and its arts council as having a successful and supportive relationship.
“Prince Edward County, they’ve got it down pat, and they are big, big supporters of arts and culture, big supporters of the arts council there,” he said.
“What I see as ODAC’s role (is) not so much running all of this, but in creating the partnerships and the collaborations that make these things happen,” said Rizzo.
“You can’t just say we’re an arts and culture destination – you actually do something to get that to happen,” he said.
Moving forward, Rizzo would also like to see stronger collaboration between local businesses and the arts community.
While large events, like Mariposa Folk Festival, draw a plethora of supporters, he views smaller events – like the upcoming Culture Days live music event at Couchiching Brewery – as the type of relationship that should be promoted more locally.
“They’re promoting our event. We’re promoting their participation,” he said. “It’s a symbiotic relationship that benefits both parties, so the cost is a little bit less for us in terms of bringing us this cultural group in, but it’s also building their reputation and their customer base.”
Melissa Gowanlock, the city’s manager of communications, said city council approves local arts funding through the budget process and through grant programs each year.
Despite the changes in the culture department, she said the city continues to focus on promoting the arts locally, but did not explain the specific differences between Surette’s managerial role and the culture coordinator position.
“The culture coordinator role continues to focus on culture programming development within the community, advancing ongoing projects, and supporting cultural groups within Orillia as part of the recreation, youth and culture division,” Gowanlock said.
“As a responsive and responsible local government, whenever there is a vacancy, the City of Orillia completes an analysis to review the needs, responsibilities, and requirements for the vacant position and ensure that the role aligns with strategic and operational priorities prior to seeking a replacement,” she added.
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