Private firm makes pitch to run arts centre
Interesting times on the public facility management front in St. Catharines.
As was reported last week, the company contracted by the city to run the Meridian Centre recently decided to replace its general manager Ken Noakes.
Noakes told The Standard it wasn’t a voluntary move on his part.
SMG, not surprisingly, did not provide detailed reasons for its corporate decision. Whether the Meridian Centre is meeting the company financial expectations remains a private matter.
What is known publicly, however, is that the local SMG operation was bumping heads with the arena’s anchor tenant, the Niagara IceDogs, primarily over the interpretation of the team’s lease with the city.
For those keeping score at home, it’s perhaps interesting to note that the three top civic related officials IceDogs owners Bill and Denise Burke had complained about privately the past year or two are no longer on the St. Catharines scene.
City solicitor Nicole Auty, who was involved in the laborious attempts to finalize an ultimately unsuccessful $1-million naming rights deal with the IceDogs, was let go shortly after IceDogs complaints with the process were made public.
CAO Dan Carnegie, who was occasionally called upon to referee the lease disputes and also had involvement in the naming rights issue, ended up leaving his post well before his contract was up. And Noakes is now gone. When asked by reporter Karena Walter if his departure was related in any manner to the IceDog dispute, Noakes replied: “Hmm, I wouldn’t make a comment on anything like that.”
As I said, interesting. Not necessarily connected.
Anyway, there’s another twist to the SMG saga.
The company has apparently made a pitch to the city to take over the management of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, a proposition city council is dealing with in camera.
So, around the same time SMG approached the city about the arts centre job, the company decided to remove its thorn from the prickly relationship with the IceDogs.
Probably just a coincidence, as opposed to, say, trying to curry favour with anyone.
Don’t know much, if anything, about SMG’s pitch to the city re the arts centre. Apparently, though, council didn’t dismiss it out of hand. It asked staff to prepare a report on the offer.
It’s probably reasonable to assume SMG is saying it can run the facility for less money than the city can. I mean, why else would the municipality be interested?
I don’t believe there are many St. Catharines residents who are dismissive of the arts centre either as a welcome cultural addition to the downtown or as an economic catalyst for the surrounding area. It’s a legitimate source of pride for the city.
However, there have been occasional rumblings about its rising operating budget.
Back when a performing arts centre was first being contemplated in 2009, a consultant’s report projected the annual operating deficit at $1.5-million, of which Brock University would cover half through the rental of space for academic use.
Brock has come through with the yearly $750,000 contribution, but the city’s subsidy has risen considerably.
Given the brave new arts world the city was entering, the consultant’s projections were always going to be a bit of a crap shoot, and some of the contemplated revenue sources — office rentals, retail space — never materialized.
Still, in 2016, its first full year of operation, the city’s subsidy for the arts centre was $1.33 million.
For 2017, arts centre boss Steve Solski initially proposed a 32 per cent budget increase, a request that went over at the city’s budget committee like a skunk at a garden party.
This year’s budget of $1.5 million ended up being 14 per cent over last year’s actual and 20 per cent over last year’s budgeted amount. (Solski told the budget committee this year’s large hike would stabilize operations to the point there would essentially be no increase from 2018 to 2020.)
While a reduction in costs through the hiring of a private company might find favour with some in the city, others, most notably the arts community, will likely recoil in horror at the thought of a bottom-line focused operator running the show.
But that’s conjecture at this point. The entire matter is being kept under wraps for now.
The same with the lease dispute between the city/SMG and the IceDogs.
Earlier this year, the city hired a Toronto law firm to look into the problem. It made a number of findings and recommended, among other things, that an arbitrator be hired to resolve disagreements between the parties. The city then asked its solicitor to review the findings and report back on how to proceed.
That was in March. Since then, nothing has been stated publicly.
City officials were upset when the confidential legal report was leaked. And, undoubtedly, they won’t be happy about the SMG leak.
But maybe if the city used more than a two-watt bulb to shed light on its activities behind the scenes, such subterfuge wouldn’t be necessary.