{"id":6641,"date":"2014-05-14T14:19:29","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T18:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=6641"},"modified":"2014-05-14T14:19:29","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T18:19:29","slug":"bidder-disappointed-over-museum-process-cam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/bidder-disappointed-over-museum-process-cam\/","title":{"rendered":"Bidder \u201cdisappointed\u201d over museum process: CAM"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Her company might be based in Markham, but Shelley Falconer, partner in Cultural Asset Management (CAM), considers herself a local.<\/p>\n

The King resident has expressed disappointment in the tone of Council debate that ultimately saw CAM\u2019s winning bid to take over the curation and management of the re-established museum get thrown out last week in favour of an earlier plan simply to hire a curator to manage the Aurora Collection and carry it forward. <\/p>\n

Watching Council\u2019s discussion of the matter at last week\u2019s meeting as well as the previous week\u2019s discussion at the Committee level, she said she was disappointed by \u201cinaccurate\u201d information being discussed and not having an opportunity to respond. <\/p>\n

One of the primary pieces of misinformation, she said, were comments by the Aurora Historical Society (AHS) and repeated at the Council table that 900 artefacts were \u201cmissing\u201d from CAM\u2019s inventory, only to be found when the AHS came looking for them.<\/p>\n

AHS contracted CAM to do a complete inventory and appraisal of the thousands of items in the Aurora Collection in a project that concluded last year with the Town of Aurora acquiring the artefacts. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur report indicates clearly in their database they had 900 objects missing but not labelled,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is all we said. We didn\u2019t say there was anything missing and, in fact, we offered to go and find them for them, and because there was a timeline on our contract, they said not to worry. That was something that was taken and extrapolated into something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking over the discussion, Ms. Falconer said she found it \u201castonishing\u201d that they would be labelled \u201coutsiders\u201d considering they passed Council\u2019s qualification round last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe question has to be asked: if the AHS had won, would any of this have even happened?\u201d she asks. \u201cIt does sound like sour grapes. They had an opportunity to not use us back in December at the pre-qualification stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The relationship between the AHS from this date leading up to last week\u2019s decision was a complicated one. Although CAM was hired by the AHS to work on the Aurora Collection last year, Ms. Falconer says they offered to go in with the AHS on a joint bid for museum services, but this offer was declined. <\/p>\n

She also added that in speaking to Councillors, the AHS stepped over a blackout period imposed on all three bidders looking for the museum contract. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur proposal covered every single area of museological concern from access to care for the collection,\u201d she said. \u201cOur report noted there are serious infestation issues with the collection; there are serious storage issues. There are a lot of conservation issues and that is part of the professional skillset that we outlined in the proposal that we would address that the historical society doesn\u2019t have, which is one of the reasons they hired us in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being online curators as well, they would be able to focus on \u201ccommunity\u201d access to the collection. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is nice to have these collections, but if no one can see it because it is owned by the taxpayers, then you have a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another key factor was cost. According to information released by the Town, CAM proposed a five-year contract of $556,500, while the AHS clocked in at $1,248,250. Much of this price difference, Ms. Falconer speculates, can be attributed to their proposal to supply many museum materials, including displays, at cost, something she says they are in a unique position to do. <\/p>\n

At the end of the day, however, it was being labelled as an outsider which Ms. Falconer says most irked her. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think anyone with a small business in and around Aurora should feel upset by this. I have been living in the community for years,\u201d she said. \u201cMy daughter went to school here; I go there every day to shop and work out. I am just really offended that I am called third party and an outsider.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it shocking that Aurora is a growing community with new people coming in all the time. What message are they sending? Is it because I haven\u2019t been here for 20 years? Is that the problem? I have been here for about seven years now and I find that very insulting.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Her company might be based in Markham, but Shelley Falconer, partner in Cultural Asset Management (CAM), considers herself a local.<\/p>\n

The King resident has expressed disappointment in the tone of Council debate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6641","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\/p3D2k4-1J7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 06:31:46","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\/6641","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=6641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}