Misinformation And Mischief And More of the same.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Whatever It Was..It was not Chaos..It was not conf...":

"I have said nobody should have robbed the Historical Society of that which was theirs. But they did."

Misinformation and mischief have been a couple of your buzzwords this week. The above is an example.

The Historical Society gave up, walked away, and threw the keys on the table, abdicating all claims, responsibilities, and liabilities to the Church St School heritage centre (note not a "museum") project.

The AHS also requested a legal letter from the Town acknowledging the cessation of the Society's involvement and absolving the AHS from said responsibilities.

You persist in omitting this fact. The reality obviously doesn't support your agenda.

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Here is what I know of the situation.

The Historical Society required  a legal agreement with the town to protect their financial investment . They  raised funds. retained a consultant. Completed the task of gutting the interior of the old school. Without  town permission by the way.

They  retained a specialty architect at a fee of almost a quarter of million dollars to design a state of the art  concept of a museum.

They requested management rights of the facility and  in particular they  wanted the Director of Leisure Services to have no right to schedule use of space.

 They retained a highly qualified curator who was successful in obtaining the $750,000 grant from Federal Heritage .

Different organizations get restive with scheduling under the control of the town's leisure services director. They don't like being told  facilities must  be shared. 

The Historical Society  got the agreement they wanted.Signed,sealed and delivered.They had friends and admirers on the Council. 

There were  haughty headlines in the newspaper at the time about the value of  their services and  how  they  just might resign if they didn't get what they wanted.  

The Town signed the legal agreement. Management of the building was to the  Town's financial advantage.

The  Society's executive changed. The haughty one was heard from no more.  It happens with a volunteer agency.

Subsequently a different  executive person attended a meeting and  sought to withdraw from the obligation of managing  the program at Church Street School.  Reason was the society only had fifty-nine members. Not enough  to man all stations,

The plan for Church Street school  was museum and cultural programming.

At the same time as withdrawing from previous undertaking to manage the facility, the Society  asked to be funded on the same basis as the Library.

It is difficult to imagine what program they wanted  funded  on the same basis as the library , if it was not  the museum program.

An Ad Hoc  Arts and Culture Committee was set up with Councillor Gaertner in the chair and Granger as  council representative. Councillor Bob Mc Roberts, Deputy-Mayor was refused opportunity to represent council on the committee.

Don't tell me that  choice  was not strategic.

The Historical Society's curator was  resource person to the committee. After successfully negotiating the grant mentioned above, she up and quit.

The Society withdrew from the obligation to manage the facility at the same time as they  requested funding for their program on a substantial and secure  basis.

What Faustian deal was offered to encourage the Society to change their minds about operating the program and go after the possibility of stable funding from the town instead ?.

One can only imagine...suspect...or guess. 

After the facility was opened,the museum became  conspicuous in its absence.  I asked  the obvious question in a Council meeting.  Received a  shifty non-response from the Mayor.

I called the  museum curator. Heard about frustrated efforts to make arrangements for the museum.

And of difficulty she had  with culture centre staff. Being  told the museum would not be accommodated  because "museums don't make money"

She had been trying to make sense of  the agreement.

The long and short of it is, the museum was displaced even before the  renovations were complete and the building occupied.

All done without a public report to Council or request for authorization.  So much for openness and transparency required by law.

No doubt it explains. the departure of the original curator.

Her place as resource to the committee,  was taken over by Ken Whitehurst, the Mayor's friend and campaign organiser , at a fee of $60, an hour,to advise the committee while also serving as a member of the committee.

Mr Whitehurst was presented as a person supremely qualified for the position  without specifying how a professional journalist fit  the role of a museum curator.

At a later point in the struggle, I recalled the legal agreement between the Town and the Historical Society to protect their interest and financial investment.

I approached  town staff to inquire about its status. I was informed they had been requested to surrender  the agreement.

My comment at the time was; " My God, why would they have agreed to that? Sometimes,it's hard to help people"

Our current Mayor and CAO have had a series of meetings with the Historical Society.

Among things discussed were transfer of ownership of the collection to the town,retaining a curator capable of  advising the town and the Historical Society,  of organising a museum and providing leadership and direction hopefully to  an army of volunteers to operate the museum in its rightful home.

Absolutely no indication  exists that the Historical Society has abandoned its interest in the town's museum. There is every indication  attempts to locate the museum  in its rightful place  have been deliberately blocked  by the people at the Culture Centre .

On Tuesday, in a public meeting, I asked the Chairman of the Board, why they made the decision to exclude the museum from the facility.

He said the board did not make that decision. It was in the Strategic Plan.

The decision was in place before the facility opened. There was no time for a Strategic Plan to give that direction.

On Tuesday evening. I heard,  Susan Walmer who earlier represented herself as a friend of history was overheard, she has been awarded for same,contemptuously dismiss  the museum as a musty,dusty collection that nobody wants to see in the building.

I doubt Susan Walmer has ever even seen our collection.

Or anyone else o the board or the culture centre staff.

Certainly not Counillor Gallo,Gaertner or Ballard.

We have heard of the many beautiful display cases in the building.

Most likely supplied in completion of the museum design. Also usurped by the Culture Centre for their own selfish  purpose.

These are facts I recall to support my contention the Historical Society  and the  museum were shouldered out of the facility by a cabal, intent on stealing the space for their own purpose.

Arts and Culture are naught but a screen for skulduggery.

If  the facility is  a jewel in Aurora's crown...we have been robbed.

The crime perpetrated by  gross abuse of authority and public resources.

We have seen the enemy. And it is us.
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"The Historical Society gave up, walked away, and threw the keys on the table, abdicating all claims, responsibilities, and liabilities to the Church St School heritage centre (note not a "museum") project"

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LIAR.....LIAR......PANTS ON FIRE

That's a blatant, black-hearted falsehood.

Conjured up  for the  deliberate intent of mischief  and misrepresentation