The town of Oromocto is the first community to pledge regional funding to a new performing arts centre in Fredericton.
The $50-million new facility has already received a funding commitment of $14-million from the City of Fredericton.
Town of Oromocto Chief Administrative Officer Richard Isabelle said the town pledged to give $100,000 in total over four years.
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He said last fall, town council received a presentation from the Fredericton Playhouse Inc. committee looking for contribution from different municipalities. Richard said the board came and presented the scope and cost of the project, and put forward a cost-sharing proposal.
Richard said the town was already into their budgeting process and delayed a decision until January. He said it was then decided that the town would make a contribution, although it wasn’t as much as the committee’s ask.
While they “couldn’t reach anywhere near the level of contribution that was proposed by the playhouse,” they thought it was important to make a contribution to indicate the value they put on the performing arts centre and the value it has on the residents of Oromocto.
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“About 10 per cent of our families we believe take part in at least one Playhouse event per year and that shows how important it is to the people of Oromocto,” Isabelle said. “So on that basis they wrote a letter to the chair of the board of the playhouse and pledged $ 25,000 a year for the first four year of the project once it gets underway.”
He said they have a $7-million public works building project underway and said the performing arts centre was competing with the town’s own priorities.
Fredericton Playhouse Inc. board of directors vice-president Greg MacFarlane said the board is excited Oromocto came on board. He said it “shows the importance of the existing playhouse and the importance of addressing the end of life reality of the building.”
“We’re hoping for more money,” MacFarlane said, “But and we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from the outside communities. Some said they’re going to look at it again next year, some gave us moral support, but one thing we have built into the equation or formula is that we do have some flexibility depending on who’s in and who isn’t in terms of the overall cost of the building.”
Village of New Maryland Mayor Judy Wilson-Shee said council discussed contributing funds, but said it wasn’t possible.
“We discussed it among council, we had a lot of discussion, a lot of debate and council decided for now that we cannot contribute,” Wilson-Shee said. “It was quite a commitment for 10 years.”
She said the village wanted to still be a “good neighbour” and said they are working on putting on a “major fundraiser” in support of the project.
“We’ve taken it one step further and we have approached members of the regional service commission … to see if any mayors or LSD reps that are not going to participate would like to come on board with us,” Wilson-Shee said. “We’re not just walking away from it, we would like to help out.”
Hanwell Rural Community Mayor Chris Melvin said the committee approached them for funding as well and made a presentation.
“We recognize the importance of regional collaboration, however Hanwell is in the middle of building its own fire hall and its own community centre, so it’s simply a matter of timing,” Melvin said.
Melvin said council is “all for the regional performing arts centre.”
“We see the need for it and we wanted to contribute, but unfortunately it just wasn’t the right timing, but it might not be the case if there was a fundraising campaign,” Melvin said.
He said that’s something council would have to decided if the official ask was made.
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