Heritage commission asks City council to put brakes on merger with arts commission

NEWS — The City’s heritage commission wants the brakes put on its merger with the cultural commission.

Heritage commission chair Andrew Yarmie says in a letter to City council he wasn’t notified that the merger is scheduled for today’s regular council meeting. The merger was proposed by staff several weeks ago, and council directed terms of reference for a merger to be drawn up.

Yarmie wants time for the heritage group to make a presentation on the plan.

“We were expecting to have further discussion of this issue with (arts and culture manager) Barb Berger at our March 12 meeting but it was cancelled due to her absence.”

He said the commission had expected to review the final draft of the terms of reference for the merged commission at the heritage commission’s meeting tomorrow (Wednesday).

All members of the commission want further consultation, he wrote.

“Some feel that the Cultureal Commission will be too large and be beyond their comfort zone in providing input. The combined duties and responsibilites of arts and heritage is too broad and will lead to inefficiency and be counterproductive of the existing mandates.

“Meetings will be too long and cumbersome. Some members have no interest or background in arts issues and therefore feel pressured by being placed into a new commission.”

They are “not comfortable” with the merger, writes Yarmie.

Council will consider the letter today as a supplementary agenda item.