I love a festival. Almost unconditionally. Because they’re so, well, festive. And in a small city like New West, celebrations offer rare opportunities to kick up one’s heels with your neighbours and celebrate all that’s good about our fair city.
But when taxpayer funds get doled out, I become a bit more discriminating.
I have questioned Hyack Festival Association’s expenditures in the past (and how much the city was doling out for that organization) – $140,000 cash for 2013 – and I now seriously question city council’s actions on another city festival.
Monday city council voted to give the Uptown Live festival $48,000 ($28,000 in cash, $20,000 in kind) for a one-day shebang.
Last year’s event was great. Lots of bands and dancing created a true “street party” feel. It ran under Hyack’s umbrella and was part of the day’s festivities which included the Hyack parade. The new plan is to have the Uptown Live festival be a stand-alone event.
In any case, should taxpayers fork out $28,000 for a one-day event in a single commercial area?
Council has approved funding for the following festivals this year: the Arts Council of New Westminster ($3,000 cash), Fraser River Discovery Centre for RiverFest (two-day festival – $12,500 cash), Royal City Pride Society ($5,000 cash), Sapperton Business Association (Sapperton Days – $1,500 cash) and the West End Business Association (12th Street Music Festival – $1,500 cash). Other festivals – including the Downtown New West BIA-Key West Ford Show and Shine and the Columbia StrEAT Food Truck Fest – receive in-kind city services, but no cash. The total amount of cash being given to all those groups equals $23,500 – yes, that’s right, all of them together will receive less than the Uptown Business Association’s one-day Uptown Live event. I will leave the in-kind services for another column, as it is a tangled mess that I don’t even think city staff have a complete handle on.
Meanwhile, of course, the Hyack Festival grant decision sits somewhere in city hall and awaits council’s pleasure. I expect Hyack will receive a very small portion of its request – if anything. While that may not be completely fair to all the innocent hard-working volunteers and past members of Hyack, it’s also completely understandable given the public debacle and mismanagement displayed by the society.
Hyack asked for $185,000 cash to put on its festivals in 2014. Those include Canada Day,
concerts, the Ambassador program, Hyack float, the Christmas parade, and staff and administration costs to manage it all. It’s probably a moot point now. Again, city hall shouldn’t be funnelling money to any organization in that kind of a mess – period.
Many in the city will see a pattern in council’s decision regarding the Uptown Live festival. The city took over Hyack’s Santa parade last year, and the city could be using the uptown festival as a jumping off point to further decrease Hyack’s profile. (There’s even a new ambassador program started by a former Hyack director, Lynn Radbourne, which bears a striking similarity to the current Miss New Westminster Ambassador program put on by Hyack. Yes, there are differences – but, really, two such programs in one small city?) Competing festivals in the city just doesn’t seem like a great idea to me. And now the city appears to be manipulating the situation by throwing more money at the anti-Hyack side. While this may seem like a good idea in the short term, nothing good comes out of building up one part of the city in an attempt to extinguish another group or part of the city.
Greg Magirescu, the former manager of arts and cultural development in New Westminster, parted with city hall late last year, and that job has yet to be filled. At the time, it was reported that the job would be filled, but with a slightly different title. Could the city be restructuring the position to include some or all festival supervision? Not an entirely bad idea – but again, at what cost to the taxpayer? And who would benefit?
Frankly, I don’t have any dogs in this fight, and I’ve been criticized by pretty much everybody during the Hyack debacle. But it seems to me that when a one-day festival gets an amount more than all of the other festivals in the city get – there should be, at the very least, a lot more explaining going on by the folks who were elected to make fair and reasonable decisions with taxpayermoney.
If the city believes that the Hyack society is incapable of being trusted, or that it has damaged itself irreparably, and should not be in charge of any festivals in the city (which is is understandable given its behaviour) then don’t give it any grant money. Have the city run those events for one year while the city does an open and fair review of all public celebrations and events in the city.
But don’t fuel a civil war in the city by giving one festival or group an unfair amount.
This will only increase tensions and, worse, make the city look like a co-conspirator instead of offering much-needed honest and transparent leadership.
Pat Tracy is the editor of The Record and Burnaby NOW.
