Chilliwack councillors OK smaller subsidy for Mural Festival, but 1 concerned over funding cut

“It looks operationally like they incur $30,000 of operational costs,” Lum said. “We require them to pay for road closures, and it’s not really an investment in the actual benefit. You look at the benefit and the fact that it’s a multi-day event. We’re asking the festival to consider how they would expand in the future. I’m wondering why we wouldn’t consider a little bit more for a request like this. We’ve kind of come forward with a base of about $5,000. It’s still about less than half of what they requested.”

In its funding application, festival organizers report a budget of $185,000 in 2024, an amount that is significantly higher than its 2023 budget of $111,000.

Darrell Lindhout, director of recreation and culture for the City of Chilliwack, defended the subsidy because the city has an obligation to remain fair and consistent with non-profit groups across the board.

“We look at the policy as a whole and then we look at the varying events,” Lindhout said. “Obviously, every event is a a little different. We try to be equitable to all the different festivals or applications. I’ll call it covering the hard costs definitely gives us some synergies and as far as kind of staying equal with all the partner groups.”

Councillor Nicole Read said festivals like this tend to bring in a lot of people to Chilliwack who will spend their money locally.

“Festivals do bring a lot of money into our community, especially a festival of this kind because we’re kind of promoting something different that we don’t actually promote a lot around our community,” Read said. “This festival does bring a lot of good economic value into our community, but I also recognize that we do need to be consistent and look at types of things that we’re funding rather than others. I do support the $5,000. I understand with the $5,000 it has been sort of meted out for the hard costs.”

Image: City of Chilliwack / Councillor Nicole Read said the Chilliwack Mural Festival brings a lot of economic value to the city because attendees and visitors spend money in town for the 3-day festival.

2024 costs for the Chilliwack Mural Festival range from $68,000 to support artist workshops and musicians to marketing costs of nearly $44,000. Festival organizers say the festival expects to benefit from more than 700 hours of volunteer support, which amounts to a value of approximately $11,000.

The festival is also seeking funding federal and provincial government grants and is soliciting support from local donors and businesses.

by Mike Vanden Bosch

Chilliwack councillors OK smaller subsidy for Mural Festival, but 1 concerned over funding cut

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