We are posting the following exchange between Councillor Deal and AABC. While it clarifies some issues, there are still many questions to be asked. Ultimately, the real question is should we have an arts council or not. To us, it is similarly spurious to make the economic argument for this as it is to make the economic argument for the arts. An fully arm’s length arts council is, in our opinion, the only sensible and practical way to manage arts funding and policy in the city.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the link. We continue to look seriously at the advantages and disadvantages of an independent arts council – there will be a memo from staff on this in June. They will bring us results of related consultation.
In the meantime I have to clarify a few numbers from your blog. The City hands out $10.1 million in grants each year (276 grants) - a very high number for a city our size. The staff in the granting stream of cultural services consists of 3.5 FTE’s – giving us a 5.7% admin cost. Other cultural services staff are dedicated to public art, partnerships, civic theatre operations and the planning for Hastings Park.
I look forward to this next phase of our work as we look to the future of how we manage and expand our cultural mandate at the city.
Cheers,
Heather
Hi Tom,
Here is a link to the grants web page – all of that information is available. There have been significant changes in the granting streams in recent years.
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/cultural/gasp/index.htm
Cheers,
Heather
From: Arts Advocacy BC [mailto:aabc@artsadvocacybc.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 5:19 PM
To: Deal, Heather
Subject: RE: Vancouver Arts Council–The last word.
Hi Heather,
I do appreciate your response. Regarding the Cultural Services budget, I took the information from this article in the Georgia Straight http://bit.ly/6OmUrM and I’m sure that this refers only to certain types of grants. It would be really interesting to see how the $10.1 million is distributed and used by the various sections in Cultural Services. I’m sure a goodly portion goes to civic theatres, but just how much to this and that? I’m sure you will appreciate that individual artists and arts organizations are mostly concerned with the degree of support they receive and how it is adjudicated and delivered.
I’m happy to hear that the arts council is not dead in the water. To me, personally, it is the only sensible way to deal with public funding for the arts.
Many thanks again, and I hope we can talk one day soon.
All the best,
Tom
Heather’s arguments are disingenuous. Vancouver employs more ‘cultural planners’ than the whole of the BC Arts Council. That cannot be disputed.
A significant proportion of Vancouver’s arts grants go to the City’s own properties: the Orpheum and the Queen E. Little adjudication is required, least of all by the City’s innumerable ‘planners’. This waste of money pays civil servants to give grants to civil servants.
A major percent goes to three major players: the VAG, the Symphony, and Vancouver Opera. Little adjudication is required. Few staff hours are actually required. Fewer are justifiable.
We need an Arts Council precisely because we don’t need political meddling. Heather failed to mention that, under the previous Cultural Services regime, they were set up to add ANOTHER SEVEN cultural planners. Only public protest shouted down that nonsense.
Cutting the staff by 50%, and adding those salaries to the pool of money available to actual artists makes a good deal more sense that the hybridized, solve-nothing halfway house that Heather now favours.
Her views were much clearer before she got elected.