A Municipal Cultural Plan which began as an idea brought forward by Sask Culture has finally been presented to Yorkton Council.
The Plan, which was heralded as rather groundbreaking in 2007 when Yorkton was selected as one of four communities in Saskatchewan to undertake the process as part of a pilot project, seemed to bog down somewhere along the way.
The result is much of the local interest and momentum from the launch of the process has been lost.
It is difficult for the cultural community in the city to remain excited about an effort to create a plan which has stagnated for months.
Even now that the Plan has been presented to Yorkton Council, it is far from being implemented in any fashion.
The document was handed over to City Administration to determine priorities within the framework of the Plan.
Darcy McLeod, Director of Community Development of Parks & Recreation with the City told media Monday a lot more work lies ahead in terms of that process, adding he hopes to have a report back to Council before year-end. That means Council has to wait five to six months just to see what the Plan's priorities are.
Now while McLeod noted, "in some cases we're already doing some of this stuff," many aspects of the Plan will come with some level of funding requirement, and that means the best case scenario is to have elements as part of the 2011 City Budget process. Implementation would then come later next year.
The Plan lays out a number of broad key objectives, ranging from developing communication between cultural groups within the city, to educating and engaging the community in culture.The actions are rather general in nature, and that will put the onus of City Administration how best to formulate policy and programming to achieve the goals. In many cases a community cultural committee, part of the key action list, will be crucial in helping detail implementation of the plan.
Like most plans, without dollars tied to it, it will not work. There has to be money to move most objectives forward, even if it's just seed money for advertising and bringing people to the table to work collectively.
The Plan itself states "we encourage the City of Yorkton to consider this plan as a framework, a blueprint for the creative potential of your next generation of citizens. Any investment made in culture today will pay dividends for generations to come. We encourage your City to be the first in Saskatchewan to adopt and implement a cultural plan."
The question is how committed Council will be to the Plan? We shall see in the fall when price tags to implementation are more fully revealed by the City Administration report.
