Showing posts with label beautiful city billboard fee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beautiful city billboard fee. Show all posts

Friday, February 12, 2010

Billboard-Tax-for-Art Activists Sound Alarm: Councillor Reversals Mean TO Initiative Not in Clear Yet


This week has been a doozy for City Hall politics in the T-dot. Adam Giambrone, a young city hall councillor who is head of the transit commission and was running for mayor, basically crash-and-burned after a former lover took their relationship to the press--and, most importantly, after Giambrone lied to the press about same.

But this post is not about Adam Giambrone. (Though, if you're interested, my views are pretty much summed up by this column by Ed Keenan and this one by Royson James.) What this post is about is another matter at City Hall that has likely flown under the radar this week thanks to the Giambrone-schadenfreunde fest.

In the past few days, BeatifulCity.ca, the campaigners who helped push an innovative billboard-tax-for-public-arts idea to approval at city council last year, have put out the call that the fight for this initiative is far from over.

As BeautifulCity explains in a Tuesday email,

The billboard tax for art has been passed at $10.4 million in expected revenue to be fully rolled out in 2011. Approximately $1.8 million has been allotted to policing the new billboard bylaw. This satisfies one of our main objectives in starting BeautifulCity.ca and is cause to celebrate. The last key objective is directing the remaining funds to enhancing the public sphere via arts and culture. This is slated to take place during the 2010 budget process. Unfortunately there is strong pressure for Councillors to renege on their commitment due to the perpetual budget crisis, an outdated idea of how to create a successful city and the optics of supporting the arts during potential cuts.

And in an email sent out today, BeautifulCity notes that former supporter Councillor Gord Perks is now challenging the arts funding:

Unfortunately Councillor Gord Perks (Budgeting Committee, Ward 14 Parkdale / High Park) is coming out strong against the billboard tax revenues going to enhancing public spaces with art in the budget process.

This is a serious problem. It is also after he supported the idea in council ( see this video at 2:10 ) and had his staff giving residents the impression that he was in favour of using the funds to enhance public spaces when they were last calling in.


Gord is a great guy and has a history of really good work. We would probably vote for him again despite what we consider to be a critical but changeable lapse in judgment. He honestly thinks he is doing what is best for the community and needs to be respected for that. However, as a member of the Budget Committee he represents all of Toronto and needs to hear from you - especially if he represents you as a resident of ward 14.

As a result, BeautifulCity is asking citizens to contact members of the Toronto City Hall Budget Committee (particularly, but not only) Gord Perks. To find out more on how to do that, visit the BeautifulCity tips page.

Image of Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman's In Sit You at the Toronto Sculpture Garden by FranktheRabbit from Torontoist

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Monday, November 30, 2009

UPDATED TO Sign Industry Strikes Back Against "Billboard Tax for Art" Initiative


Tomorrow, Toronto city councillors vote on a billboard tax that could raise $11 million for arts and culture in our city. (That's a bolstering of 50%!) But as indicated by the photo above, snapped in my neighbourhood over the weekend, this worthy initiative, which I posted about a couple of weeks ago, is coming under heavy backlash from the signage industry.

This backlash from the signage industry isn't just happening in the streets—it's also happening, as illegalsigns.ca reports, at City Hall, where the billboard industry reportedly submitted false revenue data. Last week, Jonathan Goldsbie at Spacing Wire also suggested that Councillor Karen Stintz had been bending rules to meet with pro-billboard lobbyists.

Fortunately for arts and culture in Toronto, reputable poll results released Friday and posted on Praxis Theatre's blog indicate that Torontonians support the billboard tax by a 5-1 margin. Michael Wheeler at Praxis also notes that a NOW Toronto story on our "sign wars" is on its way to being its most commented story ever--the comments are most certainly worth a read if you want to see how vociferous this debate is becoming in some parts.

Hopefully, when the councillors vote tomorrow, they will note the vast majority of Torontonians do seem to be pro-billboard-tax. If you want to make sure they know your view, please email your councillor now, either through the BeautifulCity.ca site or using this list of contacts.

UPDATE 1 - BeautifulCity.ca has confirmed the vote is happening December 1 at 9:30am. They urge supporters who can to come out to City Hall and/or to an after-event happening at 9pm at 52 McCaul. (Thanks again to Michael Wheeler @ Praxis Theatre who posted this info on their blog.)

UPDATE 2 - As noted by Michael Wheeler in the recent comments, The Guardian has published an unabashed endorsement of the beautifulcity.ca initiative calling it:
"a brilliantly simple, logical idea which, if implemented over here, could surely help plug the growing hole in the arts council coffers." AND The vote has bee rescheduled again. 10am Friday is showtime.

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Friday, November 20, 2009

Beautiful City builds Billboard-tax-for-Art Momentum


Over the past few years, there's been a growing anti-billboard movement in Toronto. And one of the more interesting subgroups to come out of this is an initiative to use a new tax on billboards to fund public art and art education. The initiative comes up for City Hall approval very soon, November 30 and December 1, and the site BeautifulCity.ca is asking folks to sign a related petition, as well as call their councillors before the vote.

While I'm actually a fan of good, creative advertising and the work it gives creative people (what was the Sistine Chapel, after all, but one massive ad for the church?) the fact is that a lot of billboard ads are crappy, and that we need more money for art, especially art education and underserved communities. (Beautiful City also says that it could generate a 50%/$11 million increase in funding for city artists and arts institutions.) So I urge you to give the petition a look, as well as the related video below.

Beautifulcity.ca Town Hall - 1st Cut from BeautifulCity.ca on Vimeo.

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