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City council will use nearly 20 per cent of its unallocated capital reserve to help renovate the Dundas Valley School of Art. The grant matches federal stimulus monies promised by MP David Sweet, but it has generated concerns that other arts organizations weren’t given the chance to apply to either source of cash, and bolsters charges that stimulus monies are flowing mainly to Conservative–held constituencies.
The Dundas Arts Community Foundation has been fundraising to restore the art school building, as well as the Carnegie Gallery and the Dundas Historical Museum at a cost of nearly $10 million – hoping to get one quarter of the monies from each of the city, the province, the federal government, and community fundraising.
The federal funding wasn’t announced by Sweet until May 20 and must be spent by March 31 of next year, leaving project backers scrambling to find matching funds. They got a sympathetic reception at the Future Fund board of governors late last month, but no monies, because the board had previously decided not to issue grants until it has a clear picture of how much is available in the fund, and until a transparent public process is in place so all groups have an equal opportunity to apply.
Future Fund board members were upset the Dundas group was invited to apply despite the earlier moratorium on grants. They bumped the funding request to the August 11 committee of the whole meeting, where it was supported by a finance staff recommendation that $2.45 million be provided – half from the Future Fund and the other half from the city’s unallocated capital reserve of $13 million.
At the urging of Brian McHattie and Mayor Eisenberger, council decided not to use the Future Fund for any part of the city grant, as requested by the fund’s board of governors.
“There haven’t been enough funds coming back for them to actually assess a single project through the course of this term, sadly,” noted Mayor Eisenberger. “I really feel for this board that has little or nothing to do except watch us kind of poach and grab $60 million for a stadium project which you know we can’t justify as a loan and need to have.”
McHattie also warned the funding might generate a “backlash” from other local arts organizations, such as Tivoli Theatre backers, who “were told that there were no funds being made available through the stimulus fund for the arts” and who are upset that council is “making one–off allocations of funding...instead of looking at all the arts groups.”
Brad Clark agreed that the federal grant “does raise issues of transparency, fairness, equity, and all that,” but argued that decision was out of the city’s control and shouldn’t prevent council from seizing “an opportunity to leverage the funds” to support the Dundas project.
Councillors approved the $2.45 million grant with Bob Bratina joining McHattie in opposing the one–off funding.
The federal grant wasn’t the only late announcement of stimulus funds by the Conservative MP for the Ancaster–Dundas–Flamborough– Westdale riding. Last fall, Sweet found $3.425 million to expand Morgan Firestone Arena in Ancaster – three months after Hamilton received its formal federal stimulus fund allocation of $3.4 million, divided among six other recreational facilities.
The Harper government has been criticized nationally for giving extra stimulus monies to Conservative ridings. An analysis of recreational funding done last October by the Globe and Mail found that the “stimulus program created to build hockey rinks and other recreation projects [had] funnelled about 33 per cent more money to Conservative seats than to opposition ridings in the battleground province of Ontario.” V
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