The establishment of a new municipal arts council is not in the cards for Airdrie right now, as the City’s Community Development department has been instructed to continue its work addressing the city’s arts and culture needs through the Cultural Action Plan (CAP).
“Since 2007, the City of Airdrie Community Development department has played an important and, in many cases, behind-the-scenes role in various arts, culture and heritage activities,” said Michael McAllister, community developer with the City, during his presentation to council at a meeting Nov. 18.
“Over the last few years, Airdrie has seen several arts organizations struggle to maintain their existence. Community Development has also noted that several artistic organizations and individuals are now frequently using artistic space beyond Airdrie’s municipal borders.”
Following a June notice of motion presented by Coun. Tina Petrow, administration researched best practices for municipal arts councils – “to achieve collaboration and co-ordination for a whole community approach to arts and culture,” according to the motion.
“An art council is an organization whose main goal is promote, increase access and/or provide funding to the arts within a specific geographic region,” McAllister said. “Some arts councils include programming and an operational component in their model.”
While the roles and responsibilities of arts councils are diverse and defined by individual community needs, McAllister said, they can typically be divided into three main categories: service-oriented councils, which focus on awareness, promotion, advocacy and professional development; presenting councils, which focus on presenting the arts; and programming councils, which focus on offering education and youth programming.
Additionally, he said, many arts councils manage facilities and supply funding, awards or grants to the community.
“In the Airdrie context, the municipality has functioned in all three of the above categories,” McAllister said.
The department functions as a service provider, he said, with Bert Church LIVE Theatre acting as a presenter and programmer. Council and the Community Services Advisory Board offer facilities and funding opportunities to local organizations.
“To avoid duplication and redundancies, the development of an arts council should trigger a review of municipal service levels, and a definition of ‘who does what?’ and ‘why?’” McAllister said. “Transfer of decision-making, services and programming may be required.”
Key findings from staff’s research indicated that while arts councils can be a sound economic investment for a municipality, they can also be perceived as “elitist and monopolistic,” according to administration’s report – “causing community discontent and discord, and possibly fracturing the creative community.”
“Consistent finding across all research is that there is no single solution,” McAllister said. “Best practice would suggest that arts councils should be designed and developed to meet the assessed needs of the community.”
Specifically, McAllister said, council should address its desired outcomes, assessment criteria, funding scenarios and how the new arts council would function with existing municipal departments – particularly, he noted, as “significant cross-over work” is already being undertaken by Community Development through the implementation of the CAP.
The document was adopted in June 2018, he said, and added that while it has realized many successes since that time, Community Development has also seen the cultural community “continue to struggle.”
Following a unanimous council vote, the report was accepted for information and Community Development will continue with its CAP work in 2020, with the possibility of further discussions with council to review service levels and council’s aspirations. Petrow was absent from the meeting.
“Best practice is what your community wants. And we felt like we uncovered that under the CAP that we developed, that council just reaffirmed just months ago. We felt like we’re really on the right track, and that our best practice model matches what everybody else is doing,” McAllister said. “We’ll continue to engage our arts and cultural community – that’s our passion, that’s what we do.”
