A packed house is expected at city hall Monday as councillors meet to decide the future of the Arts and Heritage Foundation.
At issue is the city's stewardship agreement with the foundation.
The foundation has run most of St. Albert's heritage and visual arts programs since it was formed by the city in 1998. It has a $1.8-million budget, $1.2 million of which comes from the city.
But it has also clashed with council and administration as of late on issues such as a request for a $4.6-million addition to the Art Gallery of St. Albert.
A report from administration this July also said that the city could save about $258,400 a year by not funding the foundation and doing all its work in-house.
The foundation disagreed, arguing that it actually saves the city money through lower wages and overhead costs.
Council has received around 100 emails on this issue since it first broke this summer, said Coun. Cathy Heron, and continues to get about two to three a day.
"In my time on council, I've never seen this kind of response," she said.
Supporters
Council tabled a range of options for its stewardship agreement with the foundation earlier this summer: renew the deal as-is for a year; negotiate a new five-year deal; move all the city's heritage, arts, or heritage and arts programs in-house; create a new group to replace the foundation; or give the foundation more responsibilities and money.
Council has asked administration to present just the facts at Monday's meeting without any recommendations, said Mayor Nolan Crouse.
"The ball is in council's court," he said.
While Crouse declined to say if he favoured any one option, other councillors were more forthcoming.
Coun. Wes Brodhead came out strongly in support of the foundation, and said he would make a motion to negotiate a five-year deal with the group on Monday.
"The Arts and Heritage Foundation has done a good job," he said, and St. Albert is well served by its talented, dedicated volunteers. If the city takes its cultural programs in-house, he argued, it would be telling those volunteers that it values them less than its own bureaucrats.
The arts have to compete with roads, police and firefighters for cash at city hall, he continued.
"If you bring all the (arts) services in-house, there is no community vehicle to lobby for arts and heritage services," he said.
Brodhead questioned the accuracy of the cost savings administration had said it could get by moving everything in-house.
"It's not as if that work goes away," he said, and the city might need more staff to handle the workload. The foundation also pays its staff less than city workers, so any staffers brought over would need a pay raise.
Coun. Roger Lemieux also came out in support of a renewed deal.
"Unless the city administration brings something else up, the math tells me that the arts and heritage [program] should stay where it is, as it is," he said.
While he's disagreed with the foundation's approach in the past, he noted that the group was able to attract more funding than the city could on its own – about $500,000 more, he estimated, citing information from Alan Murdock, the Arts and Heritage Foundation's chairman.
"It's going to cost more to take over the (foundation) than it does to keep it," Lemieux said. "If it's not broken, why fix it?"
Administration, for its part, has argued that many of those grants could be acquired by creating a "friends of society" to apply for them.
Heron said keeping the agreement as it is was a non-starter.
"There's obviously something wrong with the way it is currently," she said, given the apparent conflict and duplication of services that's going on.
While she had yet to make a decision, Heron said she was leaning towards renegotiation.
"If we can't come to an agreement, then we have to bring it in-house, but we haven't even tried," she said.
Having the city completely take over arts or heritage programming doesn't make good business sense, said Coun. Malcolm Parker – arts and heritage are too closely linked to split. He also questioned what creating a new organization would solve in the long run.
"My decision clearly has to be either [everything] comes in-house and the city runs the whole thing, or it stays with the Arts and Heritage Foundation," he said.
Coun. Cam MacKay said none of the options addressed his top concern with arts and heritage programming: non-residential fees. About half of the people using the city's arts and heritage programs are not residents of St. Albert, so city taxpayers are effectively subsidizing them, he said.
"Why are we paying for that? Why aren't we going to the council of Leduc and getting them to pay for that?"
Doing everything in-house is an option, he continued, but he questioned whether it would save any money.
"It'll be cheaper today, but will it be cheaper next year?" he asked. "In my mind, you'd just institutionalize the way things are currently."
One thing is certain, Heron said: council will settle this issue on Monday.
"God help us if we don't," she said, with a laugh. "We've been discussing this since I was elected."
Coun. Len Bracko did not respond to a request for an interview.
The public hearing starts at 5 p.m. Monday in council chambers.
