St. Albertans are one step closer to being able to make a splash on the city’s arts programming.
On March 9, city council’s community living standing committee (CLSC) gave its stamp of approval for council to form a new arts development advisory committee where residents – preferably with arts experience – will be able to have a say in how dollars are spent on public arts.
In addition to guiding St. Albert’s roughly $200,000 per year budget on public art, the five- to nine-member committee will make recommendations and provide advice supporting development of the arts. They will also choose jurors to decide on award recipients for some city arts awards.
“It’s exciting seeing this committee kind of get more of a high profile because this is something that is really important to our community,” said Coun. Natalie Joly.
Joly spearheaded the initiative in November 2018, following some mixed reviews of a $240,000 sculpture called Migration being placed inside the St. Anne Street roundabout to commemorate Canada 150.
Coun. Sheena Hughes called the committee “long overdue.”
“We have so many questions about why are things being chosen, how are they being chosen. And if people disagree with decisions that are being made, they’re welcome to join in and apply for the committee,” she said.
Before passing a motion recommending city council give three readings to the committee bylaw, members of CLSC made some tweaks to provide more clarity.
“I really want to make sure that we’re not setting our committee up to – not fail, but sort of spin their wheels for awhile,” said Coun. Ken MacKay.
Currently, St. Albert has a public art advisory committee, a volunteer standing committee which advises the city on its public art collection. The new committee would replace the old.
Previously, the city had trouble recruiting to its arts committee, because of strict requirements for members to be artists. The new committee will prefer members be artists, but it is not necessarily required.
In addition, they must be St. Albert residents.
“This approach aligns with long range planning frameworks and will allow council to ensure city resources and being distributed fairly, transparently, consistently and according to the needs and desires of the community,” said manager of creative industries and cultural development Paul Pearson.
