ARICHAT: The museum here wants to be funded like others in Richmond County.
During the regular monthly meeting on Feb. 28, Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette told council she received correspondence from Anne Leavitt, Char of the Board of Directors of the Isle Madame Historical Society (IMHS) and LeNoir Forge Museum in Arichat.
The warden said Leavitt asked why municipal funding for the group was “substantially reduced” for the past fiscal year, “and did not appear to be at all equal with the funding received by other organizations.”
The letter noted the society receives two grants from the municipality, Mombourquette said.
“The first, an annual grant of $2,000 in discretionary funds to support their work, including the operations of (LeNoir) Landing in Arichat. It’s a discretionary grant that all museums appear to receive annually. And the second grant was independent of the first. It was the result of a legally binding compensation agreement struck in 2002 between the municipality and the historical society,” the warden stated. “The compensation agreement stipulated that they would receive $2,500 annually for the expropriation by the municipality of land owned by IMHS, and assignment of responsibility for the LeNoir Forge building to the IMHS.”
Leavitt said they were told by Chief Financial Officer Jason Martell that the municipality had an obligation to roll back a part of the funding cut from the municipality to the society.
“There had been an erosion of institutional memory over time, I think is what staff indicated,” Mombourquette told council. “I do think there’s been some loss of corporate history there. I appreciate Anne for brining that up.”
Leavitt wrote the letter to ensure they would receive the same level of discretionary funding as other museums in the municipality, but had two specific requests.
“To abide by the compensation agreement struck with IMHS in 2002, and second that the compensation agreement would not prevent council from restoring the discretionary funding that it used received from council,” stated Mombourquette. “Last year, she noted all of the museums in the municipality received such funding, and they did not.”
Leavitt concluded the letter by noting that their facilities stayed open during the pandemic, they will be offering summer employment opportunities, and they received provincial capital funding to support the work of local contractors. But she added there is a financial need as they do not get provincial assistance for operating expenses, including annual insurance costs of $5,000.
District 1 Councillor Shawn Samson had council agree to discuss this during budget deliberations to, “make sure we get back on track when it comes funding they were used to seeing in the past.”