Fri May 3: How Our Municipal Art Gallery Lost Public Trust and Fell into Disrepute

Plus: News updates from Bluewater District School Board, the Owen Sound Transportation Company, Bruce County, and more

May 03, 2024

∙ Paid

👋 Welcome to The Owen Sound Current, your source for what’s happening in and around Owen Sound. Community-contributed content is open to free subscribers, while full subscribers get premium content, curated news, local events, and commenting features in these weekday briefs. Thank you for supporting independent local journalism!

person holding green apple fruit — Dodgeball pic for satire only; not indicative of River District experience. Photo by Wan San Yip on Unsplash

If you’re headed downtown today or over the weekend, be aware a few main streets will be closed for the Brightshores fundraiser hockey tournament.

It’s a curious location for the City-sanctioned event, given the interruption to local businesses from Friday afternoon to Sunday and the inevitable proximity of glass storefront windows to flying street hockey balls.

Perhaps the Brightshores Hospital, Heritage Place Mall, and Bayshore parking lots were all full?

In any case, we wish the fundraiser well, and encourage you to find parking and support small local businesses this weekend. Hopefully, you won’t need to play dodgeball to get to them.

Feature

In the first column in our ‘TTAG’s Legacy’ series, Jim Hutton explores how Owen Sound’s municipal art gallery lost hundreds of thousands of public dollars and fell into disrepute.

When we reflect back on the public discovery of the institution’s massive losses in the fall of 2017, a big question emerges: Why wasn’t the gallery made to use its reserves to cover at least part of the deficit?

TTAG’s Legacy Part 1: Bad Business, Financial Mismanagement & Lack of Oversight

Jim Hutton

May 2

TTAG’s Legacy Part 1: Bad Business, Financial Mismanagement & Lack of Oversight

Taxpayers shouldered the full loss, with Mayor Ian Boddy and Council’s assurance the pot would be made whole again via funding cuts of at least $50,000 per year for 10 years. Fast forward to today, and we’re told the debt has been “paid.” Yet no money for the gallery’s bailout has ever changed hands. The spending reductions taxpayers were promised never happened, either.

Read full story

Full subscribers, there’s a lot more for you below, including…

Details from Owen Sound Transportation Company about what they have in store for the Chi-Cheemaun’s 50th anniversary celebrations
An appeal from Grey Bruce OPP for any information helping to locate a man missing since April 27
Good news from BWDSB as they celebrate the relocation of the Agriculture Program to Grey Roots Museum and Archives
Info on an initial public meeting announced by a group planning to organize and protest changes to Durham hospital services

~ Miranda

P.S. Don’t forget to visit and bookmark OwenSoundCurrent.com. Full subscribers can access local events listings and our entire archive of content on the website.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to The Owen Sound Current to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.