| A comprehensive review of the way city hall funds the arts has been delayed – perhaps by months – due to questions over a $50,000 expenditure.
The Civic Arts Policy Review was carried out in response to questions about the way the city doles out arts funding after it granted two major funding requests – from the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, to stave off bankruptcy, and from Vertigo Mystery Theatre for construction of a new theatre – that were outside its normal sphere of arts funding.
Although the policy has been criticized by some for insufficient consultations with artists, it was scheduled for implementation by April 2004, pending council approval of $50,000 in funding to hire a project manager.
The request, however, was made too late for the 2003 city budget, and a debate over where to find that money outside the budget delayed its approval.
Ald. Madeleine King, a strong supporter of the policy, says the information from all the experts indicates that it will be difficult to implement the policy without a project manager. "We learned with the CPO and Vertigo that we need a policy to direct arts funding and time is of the essence," she says.
Most members of council expressed general support for the arts policy, but couldn’t agree on where to find the $50,000 out of a budget of more than a $1 billion.
"We have just approved a budget… and it was a tight budget, and somehow, we’re to find this money out of nowhere?" says Ald. John Schmal. "I don’t mind, in an emergency, taking money from a reserve fund, but this is not an emergency."
Council referred the funding issue to its Accountability, Priorities and Agenda Committee.
The contentious 37th Street S.W. road through the Tsuu T’ina nation that is being heralded as s solution to traffic woes in south Calgary has been delayed once again, even after city council gave itself a deadline to deal with the issue.
The deadline passed with little fanfare, other than Mayor Dave Bronconnier assuring Calgarians that city negotiations with the provincial government and Tsuu T’ina chief Sandford Big Plume are progressing.
The road has been discussed for decades, but increasing traffic gridlock in south Calgary has made it a pressing issue. There has even been debate about abandoning negotiations with the Tsuu T’ina, who own the land the road will pass through, in favour of building a bridge through the ecologically sensitive Weaselhead natural area that borders Calgary and the Tsuu T’ina reserve.
Bronconnier says he will continue to work on the issue.
A new levy that will bump up the cost of new homes to help pay for suburban infrastructure has been adopted by city council after long negotiations with the development industry.
The levy will add about $1,400 to the cost of each residential lot to consumers, but without it, suburban development threatened to crawl to a standstill because the city could no longer afford to build infrastructure for new suburbs.
Urban sprawl critics say the cost of suburban houses should be even higher to reflect their true cost of taxpayer-funded infrastructure and added pressure on existing city facilities.
Although they agreed to the new levy, representatives of the development industry say the cost will place an additional burden on low income Calgarians searching for affordable homes.
A new facility that provides affordable office space for non-profit organizations opened in Calgary on May 5.
The Kahanoff Centre provides affordable, subsidized offices and is equipped with business facilities and technology for use by all of the city’s non-profit groups. It’s the first facility of its kind in Canada and is located at 1202 Centre Street S.E.
Students from SAIT are the only Canadian competitors in a unique competition designed to create an affordable car for use in Third World countries.
The mechanical engineering technology students will take on a number of U.S. colleges and universities on May 10 in a competition to build a car that can handle rough terrain and come in at a cost under $900 U.S.
The competition is sponsored by the Institute for Affordable Transportation, an Indiana-based non-profit organization. |
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