What began as a good day for Su Ditta, executive director of Electric City Culture Council (EC3), turned dark in a hurry on Tuesday (November 19) during Peterborough city council’s deliberations on the city’s draft 2025 budget.
Hours after councillors voted almost unanimously not to reduce funding for 75 community groups and arts organizations by a proposed 25 per cent, they voted by a 7-4 count to completely eliminate any city funding for EC3.
First established as as signature recommendation of the City of Peterborough’s 2012 Municipal Cultural Plan (MCP), EC3 is an independent, arm’s-length, not-for-profit corporation with a mandate to champion the development of the arts and culture community for the people of the city and county of Peterborough.
Some of the organization’s programs and activities include the Bierk Art Bursary Program for graduating high school students, the Peterborough Arts Awards and Mayor’s Luncheon for the Arts, Artsweek, the Poet Laureate program, the Grants for Individual Artists program, and professional development workshops.
With the city’s current funding agreement with EC3 ending in 2024 and with no funds allocated for EC3 in the draft 2025 budget, community services commissioner Sheldon Laidman presented a report to city council on Tuesday that included four options for funding EC3 in 2025.
Councillor Lesley Parnell moved acceptance of the final option in the report, that council “opt not to renew funding to EC3 at this time in anticipation of the completion of a renewed MCP, which would provide further direction for the future of a culture council.”
Along with Parnell, Mayor Jeff Leal and councillors Dave Haacke, Andrew Beamer, Matt Crowley, Don Vassiliadis, and Kevin Duguay voted in favour of the defunding option. Councillors Joy Lachica, Alex Bierk, Gary Baldwin, and Keith Riel voted against it.
The other three options presented in Laidman’s report were:
- That council continue to fund EC3 operations at existing levels under the terms of a new community service agreement using general taxation funds.
- That council opt to partially fund EC3 operations under the terms of a new community service agreement using general taxation funds, with the funding amount to be determined.
- That council opt to partially fund EC3 operations under a one-year term while the new MCP is completed in 2025, with the funding amount to be determined.
While acknowledging council’s decision to go with the defunding option was the worst possible outcome, Ditta says the focus now for EC3 is wholly on changing the minds of some councillors in advance of the final 2025 budget being approved by city council on December 9.
“We will be working with city councillors, the arts community, and other influencers to try and make sure EC3 receives its full $100,000 in operating funding and all the programming money ($77,000) for Artsweek, for grants for individual artists and their portion of the money for the Poet Laureate program,” she says. “We have an opportunity to explain what EC3 can do, what the role of an arms-length arts council is in terms of tourism, and remind them what EC3 achieves with a skeleton budget.”
Noting that EC3’s annual budget is “somewhere between $175,000 and $210,000” depending on the programs being delivered and revenues received from grants and fundraising, Ditta says for every dollar invested in the arts, there’s a $25 return to the economy in spin-offs.
“We also provide professional development opportunities, artist-in-residence opportunities, and mentorship opportunities,” she says. “We provide a lot of advice and counselling. If the United Way, for example, needs help commissioning an artist to do a project, we can provide advice. When Trent University is receiving a glass collection as part of a donation, we can help them figure out how they’re going to do that in a professional way. When the Community Health Centre is looking for artists to work with them, we can find ways for them to connect with artists.”
Ditta adds that, if the city withdraws funding in 2025, EC3 would be unable to continue to carry on these activities or to deliver existing programs supporting the arts and culture community.
“All of those things would be lost, and absolutely every program that we deliver would be lost, such as the Bierk Art Bursary Program, the Peterborough Arts Awards, the Mayor’s Luncheon for the Arts, Artsweek, and the Poet Laureate Program. We also have a number of cultural and racial equity initiatives such as Spotlight on Black Artists, Truth and Reconciliation and National Indigenous Day programming, Pride programming. All of those would be lost.”
Ditta notes that EC3 had a “very positive meeting” last Friday (November 15) with Laidman and Jennifer Jones, the city’s acting director of arts and culture.
“He indicated to us that he hoped council would renew our $100,000 grant,” Ditta recalls of the meeting. “He indicated that before council today (Tuesday) as well, and that he would develop a unique template for a service grant contract that’s in line with, and applicable to, an independent arts council, that looked like what our previous contract did and is in line with the contract that other cities have with their arms-length art councils.”
“He also offered to circulate an update on our programs and activities (to provide) an accurate picture of what we had done and accomplished over the past two years.”
kawarthaNOW has obtained a copy of a detailed response to Laidman’s report that Ditta wrote before Tuesday’s vote, complete with added comments that pointed out what Ditta claimed were inaccuracies and misleading statements in the report. However, Ditta chose not to elaborate further on the alleged inaccuracies and misleading statements, instead looking forward to what needs to be done prior to the final vote on the budget.
“We’ll certainly be working hard with a number of councillors and with a number of arts organizations,” she says, adding “I suspect that the 200 people that have received individual artist grants from us will, I hope, want council to listen to what they have to say.”
“It (Tuesday) was a very big day at council. We’re really thrilled that the 25 per cent cuts to all the community service grant recipients and project grant recipients were overturned. That’s a big accomplishment. The community worked very hard together to make that happen. We hope they will now support EC3 in fighting to receive the funding we need to carry on with the excellent work that we do.”
Asked if she was surprised that council voted to defund EC3 after voting to maintain the funding of the 75 organizations facing a 25 per cent reduction in their 2025 grants, Ditta acknowledges, “It does feel contradictory.”
“One thing we hope the city will recognize is most cities in the province are moving forward with arts councils. They’re not closing them down. They’re investing in them and building them up.”
Although disappointed by council’s decision to do the opposite, Ditta is not dwelling on it because she says “there’s a lot of work to do” before the final vote at December 9th’s city council meeting, when public delegations will also be heard.
“We have confidence that Peterborough is a wise, forward-looking, contemporary city that wants to have an arms-length arts council to fulfill that image,” she says. “I’ve had so many phone calls of support, both personal support and support for EC3. That just makes me realize while it is, on the one hand, the worst of times, it really highlights how fabulous this city is and how the community comes together for things that matter.”
