Laura Mooney
Arts Editor | ote-arts@unbc.ca

nan to attempt to save money

for the city of Prince George, it
was announced on 24 February,
2014 that city funding for local
arts and culture organizations
was potentially going to be cut
by $15,000 over the course of
three years. While this may not
seem like an obscene amount, to a
group that is already struggling to
get a decent amount of funding,
this meant a huge toll would be
taken on each and every arts
organization in town.

In an interview with the Prince
George Citizen, Prince George
Symphony Arts general manager
Marnie Hamagami said she was
completely taken by surprise at

the news, and said the first thing
to be cut would be park based
events such as “Pops in the Park,”
a free outdoors concert featuring
music from popular films. Many
of these free, family based events
would have to be the first to go if
the funding was to be cut, since
there would be no way to find
enough money to put on these
events if the support from the city
was not available.

Hamagami, along with others
involved with the city’s arts and
culture organizations, had been
informed that there would be
changes to how they received
their social and cultural grants,
but nothing was ever mentioned
of a complete funding decrease.
The city had planned to decrease
the amount of money given to

the Prince George Symphony
Orchestra and Theatre Northwest
from a total 13% of their annual
income to only 10%, which in
theory would free up $27,000 for
other non-profit organizations,
according to the Citizen report.
Luckily, the city chose not to
reduce the money given to the
two organizations and even
increased the amount given

to the third arts and culture
organization, the Community
Arts Council, from 8% to match
the 13% given to the other
groups. These percentages were
guaranteed to be secure for the
next three years. This means that
the organizations will be receiving
an increase to their funding, with
a total of over $43,000 being given
to them by 2016.

\
City will not reduce arts funding

In some ways, this approval

to fund arts organizations is a
message that the city of Prince
George is shifting its focus, albeit
slowly, in the direction of a more
pro-art based community for the
city. This, along with the recent
approval of the community arts
center, shows that at least some
member of city council still
believe that Prince George could
handle being a cultural hub for
the north, and that it is no longer
as niche of a market as it has been
in past years. It shows that even
though the arts have a certain
stigma with much of the city’s
patrons, there are still those who
are fighting to put more culture
in a town where art has not been
the main focus ,and that maybe,
with the changing times, it should
start to be.