{"id":15415,"date":"2016-10-05T13:06:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T17:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15415"},"modified":"2016-10-12T16:42:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T20:42:19","slug":"alternative-ways-of-providing-culture-explored-at-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/alternative-ways-of-providing-culture-explored-at-town-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative ways of providing “culture” explored at Town Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFractured relationships\u201d need to be cast aside in favour of streamlining the delivery of \u201cculture\u201d to Aurora residents, according to Councillor Harold Kim.
\nLocal lawmakers approved a motion from the Councillor last week calling on Town Staff, namely CAO Doug Nadorozny, to come up with a definitive list of Aurora\u2019s \u201ccultural partners\u201d (those the Town and taxpayers support through funding) and come up with \u201cpossible alternative approaches in the delivery of cultural programs and services to Aurorans.\u201d
\nThe Town currently provides annual financial support to the Aurora Public Library, the Aurora Cultural Centre, the Aurora Historical Society and, most recently, the Aurora Museum & Archives, but now it is time to look closer at how each organization works together, according to the motion.
\n\u201cThere are still some fractured relationships, whether they be on the political boundaries or whether they be cultural, but they are cultural relationship issues I think that need to be put in the past and we need to move forward as one Aurora to make Aurora a great place to live and work,\u201d said Councillor Kim at last week\u2019s Council meeting. \u201cPart of what makes Aurora interesting and creates our identity, our history and heritage and cultural plays a huge role in our enjoyment of life and how others perceive us.
\n\u201cWe talk about tourism and the viability of Aurora as a cultural tourist destination and we certainly want that. At the Multicultural Festival (last month) I was talking to one of the Library staff and gave me great insight. I asked her, \u2018How do you perceive our Auroran identity,\u201d and she said, \u201cI don\u2019t think we actually have an identity. Our identity is still evolving.\u201d I daresay our identity is an evolving thing. That is part of our future identity and that has to be part of the strategy all our cultural partners have.\u201d
\nWithout a study, Council doesn\u2019t know if there are any gaps in cultural output or deficiencies in resources, he contended, and it is \u201cabout wanting to give them as much as they need to make them successful.\u201d
\n\u201cCultural experience is about the customer experience,\u201d he said. \u201cLike any other business, you focus on the experience, then the revenues, the traction and that will all follow.\u201d
\nThe motion received widespread support around the Council table, although some had concerns that the Aurora Public Library, which is governed by the Ontario Public Libraries Act, be included in the equation.
\n\u201cI want to make sure they continue to run quite independent,\u201d said Councillor Sandra Humfryes.
\nAdded Councillor Michael Thompson: \u201cI do see them separately from some of the other cultural partners that we support.\u201d
\nCiting a service level review carried out in the last term of Council, Councillor Thompson said a dividing line was found between \u201ccore\u201d and \u201cdiscretionary\u201d services and the Library was very much on the \u201ccore\u201d side of the ledger.
\n\u201cI see the Library as a core service,\u201d he said, turning his attention to a clause in the motion calling on the CAO to report to Council with a list of partners and terms of reference for the review. \u201cThere is a mandate for us to support them, and I am concerned that the process, by which I laid out here, is not necessarily [as] collaborative as I would like. I would like to see those cultural partners actually have input and be part of the discussion around possible alternative approaches or looking at economies of scale.\u201d
\nWhile he said he supported the motion as it was last week, Councillor Thompson noted he would not support it if further reports came back suggesting \u201csignificant alterations\u201d to how the Library functions.
\nMayor Geoff Dawe also expressed his reservations saying the motion \u201chamstrings\u201d the CAO by pre-defining what he is supposed to do.
\n\u201cLast term we went through a very robust discussion upon selecting who is a cultural partner when we were developing the Cultural Mater Plan,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cI would rather leave it open that he comes back to us with the list [of those partners]. There are a lot of groups out there that we don\u2019t necessarily directly support but certainly add to the culture of our Town.\u201d
\nOther Council members, on the other hand, were quite happy to see gaps being closed and consider whatever results from the motion.
\n\u201cI would like to see what comes out of this,\u201d said Councillor Wendy Gaertner.
\nAdded Councillor John Abel: \u201cWe have seen how they work independently. We can bring them in, see the spaces\u2026and then we can get goals and share resources. If we can identify through this notice of motion that the museum would like more space and what the [Cultural Centre and Library have in mind] while we\u2019re planning on investing in building a building or an area, we should know that. It is invaluable when we go forward that we look at all the parties and everyone that is going to be affected.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFractured relationships\u201d need to be cast aside in favour of streamlining the delivery of \u201cculture\u201d to Aurora residents, according to Councillor Harold Kim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-40D","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 04:31:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}