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Video: Candidates answer hard questions about supporting the arts

Penticton city council candidates gather to discuss arts and culture

“This is really intimate. I like this.”

That was the first comment from city council candidate Isaac Gilbert as he settled himself into his seat at the all-candidates forum on arts and culture, held in the tank room at the Cannery Brewing Company.

With 28 of the council and mayoral candidates attending, it made for a long row of chairs at the front of the room and a standing room only crowd in front of them, it made for some close interaction between audience and hopefuls.

“This is the largest number of candidates I can remember,” said mayoral candidate John Vassilaki, who served as a councillor for 12 years before losing his first mayoral bid in 2014.

Moderator Robin Robertson said it was good news that so many candidates turned out, but in order to fit everyone in, she had to be firm about the time allotted to the candidates to answer questions.

Related: Penticton election forum mixes arts and politics

“Nobody can tell me that there are no engaged people in Penticton,” said Robertson, who also had to remind the audience not to clap for every candidate.

“I know we would all love to clap, but if we clap, we are going to use up 10 minutes,” said Robertson. “I’ll tell you what, we will clap at the end of this question then you can clap your hearts out.”

Candidates answered questions centred on how they would support the arts if elected.

One interesting idea that came out of the evening was that rather than funding by request, Penticton could develop ongoing funding to support arts and culture.

“Maybe council should be looking at putting a percentage of city budget into arts and culture,” said former mayor Jake Kimberley.

That idea was brought up again in the question and answer period when Pat Field, Okanagan School of the Arts president, asked for a show of hands from the candidates if they supported dedicating a specific percentage to support the arts, and got a positive response from the majority of candidates.

Council candidate and well-known artist Glenn Clark, dropped a bit of a bombshell when it was his turn to answer a question.

“We need support. The art gallery has been struggling with its funding. It’s probably half what it should be, looking at other cities,” said Clark, who is also employed by the Penticton Art Gallery. “We’ve been now twice threatened to get kicked out. I was in a room where we were told they (city hall) don’t care what we do, they’re just looking at the price of the land.”

Two years ago, a city staff report brought up the possibility of moving the Penticton Art Gallery to the Trade and Convention Centre from the prominent location it occupies next to the Japanese Garden off Lakeshore Drive and Marina Way.

In 2016, Mayor Andrew Jakubeit — who is running for re-election — said moving the gallery was “low on the priority list,” but the city “could free up that location to get something closer to market value.”

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The art gallery building is owned by the Art Gallery society, not the city. However, if the city doesn’t renew the land lease when it runs out in 2019, forcing the gallery to move, ownership of the building will transfer to the city.

Related: Editorial: Art gallery is a treasure

Another common theme for the evening was comparing the funds directed to hockey and other sports by the City of Penticton — which is working towards building another multi-million dollar arena on the SOEC campus — to how much is spent on the arts.

After all was said and done, Robertson said she felt the evening was a success.

“We achieved our goal and we got amazing turnout from the candidates,” said Robertson, adding there was a great turnout for the audience too. “All the seats were full. I wanted people to think broader about arts and culture and I think we achieved that.”

That included some of the candidates, she thought, explaining one reason for the forum was to perhaps get people seeing arts and culture through a different lens.

“We want them to understand how it’s not just about things being pretty. It’s about encouraging innovation and a place people want to come and visit. And it helps with economic development,” said Robertson. “I think we started the conversation.”


Steve Kidd
Senior reporter, Penticton Western News
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