Dear Editor,
"Building a Foundation" (TMI, Tue. Feb. 23) is an article/interview in which members of the Meaford Hall Foundation try to clarify the existing structure of Meaford Hall and expound once more on the achievements of the Foundation. Once again, the impression we are supposed to get after reading these explanations is that the Foundation has filled "the need to get things happening in the Hall", or as can be quoted from earlier articles, "fill the vacuum” after the GTF left.
Local citizens without collective amnesia will recall that prior to late-2006, there was lots of activity at the Hall, indeed, much more activity than there is now. The deliberate eviction of the GTF from the Hall, publicly supported by members of the Foundation and some members of the municipal council, was the last step in a succession of events that created this vacuum. It was the Meaford Hall Board of Management, set up in 2002, that directed the successful fund-raising campaign to renovate the Hall, raising $700,000 in donations and $1.7 million in grants. The first step in creating the vacuum was when the municipality inexplicably disbanded the board in early 2006, and fired the Hall manager, Ian McCallum, even though McCallum had succeeded, in just five months on the job, in securing a $79,000 grant from Canadian Heritage, forfeited by the Municipality following his dismissal and lining up a $100,000 grant from Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund.
The vacuum created at the Hall was then readily filled by the Foundation. Why did members of the Foundation stand up and publicly denounce the GTF, supporting their eviction from the Hall, when they state on their website that their aim is to “work with local groups to ensure that Meaford Hall is a viable, accessible and welcoming centre for the community…”?
Are we also supposed to forget that the Foundation enthusiastically supported the “facility for rent” approach as advocated by Paul Osborn in his “Strategic Marketing and Operations Plan” of 2006, even though it was criticized and opposed by a number of residents and cultural professionals? Why did council ignore the letters and critiques that these individuals submitted against the ‘hall for hire’ plan? This plan set community rates for use of the Hall at unaffordable levels, and to this day, the community rates still remain too high for local groups, thus effectively keeping many them out of the Hall.
Perhaps this partly explains why the Foundation and Hall can only muster 20 to 40 volunteers to help them at the Hall, as compared to the 120 plus volunteers that used to help at the Hall when it really was an accessible, welcoming centre of cultural activity, as it had been originally envisioned.
The article also states that, ”Outside of the initial $30,000 in seed money, the Foundation…does not receive any public funds (from the municipality)”. What about the $75,000 for marketing and advertising the Foundation’s productions (resolution # 18-231-2007) and the $5,000 towards the Centennial of the Hall, as well as the free office space for more than three years? . It seems safe to estimate that the Foundation has received well over $100,000 in public funding.
In spite of the fact that the Meaford Hall Foundation receives considerable taxpayer-funded sponsorship, they insist that they are unaccountable to Meaford taxpayers. Thankfully, they are accountable to Revenue Canada, and their financial statements can be viewed in full on the Revenue Canada website.
Any taxpayer can view and download their financial statements for the years 2006 to 2008. Reviewing these statements raises some questions and concerns:
For instance, in 2007, the Foundation states revenue from ‘sales of goods and services’ to be $136,957. Does this refer to box office sales at Meaford Hall for the 36 Foundation-presented events for that year? In the same year, they state $0 in occupancy costs. Did they not pay the commercial rental to the Hall as they have publicly repeatedly claimed?
Is the Foundation claiming Meaford Hall box office revenue as their revenue? Does this mean that when the Foundation claims to have raised $215,101 in total revenue for the year 2007, that most of this revenue is in fact Meaford Hall box office receipts?
For comparison, one can also view financial statements for the GTF’s last year of operation on the Revenue Canada website. In 2006, the GTF took in $189,049 in box office receipts, charitable donations of $73,841, and provincial grants totaling $18,369. Compare this to the Foundation’s 2007 box office receipts of $136,957; charitable donations of $32,967 (less than half of what the GTF raised). Government grants: $0. Note also that the Foundation programming ran for 12 months. The GTF programming ran for only 2 months without municipally paid employees and using their own box office equipment.
The frequently publicized sponsorship of local initiatives is shown to amount to $9,179 in 2007, with $7,294 going to Meaford Hall. That leaves $1,855 for GBSS, Meaford Museum and the Library. Since the sponsorship is not given in money but as a reduction in rental of the Hall and the Foundation has no rental expenses shown, is it not in fact the municipality that is the true sponsor leaving the Foundation as the middle man taking all the credit? The monies spent on advertising $23,654. Professional consulting fees $13,500 and “other unspecified” $22,854 total $60,000. Compared to this, the sponsorship amount of $1,855 is minuscule indeed. Proportionally the amount in 2008 is quite similar.
With so much confusion, so many lines being crossed and muddled, no wonder there is a lot of speculation of what the true costs of the Meaford Hall "takeover" have been.
What portion of the $3.3 million municipal deficit of the last three years can be attributed to the Hall losses? Surely, it is not the amount that the municipality originally budgeted for the Hall.
This is the election year and the tired, old mantras and pleas for forgetting the past will no longer work. It should finally be time for clarity, real checks and balances, not just the formation of yet another committee or task force while pre-determined "business as usual" continues. I hope that CAO Frank Miele will get to the source of these problems, will introduce solid structure with organizational charts, insist on accountability and will succeed in coming up with democratic and lasting solutions. His intentions seem genuine; he comes with a lot of experience and seems to be on the right track. I wish him and the new task force the best of luck!
Gita Kikauka, Meaford
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