More than a month and a half after a limited-duration grant to The Exploration Place was rejected by Prince George city council, councillors reopened the door for the museum to receive it at its Wednesday, April 23 meeting.
This year, council adopted a new procedure for considering limited-duration grants.
At a meeting of the committee of the whole in early March, city staff recommended handing out grants worth $131,576 to 14 applicants, who would receive the same amount of money in both 2025 and 2026.
However, after a motion from Coun. Brian Skakun, a recommended $10,000 for The Exploration Place in both 2025 and 2026 was removed from the list after expressing concern that the facility already receives considerable annual funding from the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George.
That decision was ratified at council’s March 24 meeting, with staff directed to prepare a report on how the unallocated grant money should be spent.
The Exploration Place received $500,000 in loans from the regional district last year to help it through some difficult financial times.
At the last meeting of the regional district’s board of directors on April 17, museum representatives acknowledged they were slightly behind on paying down their line of credit but expressed optimism that it would get back on track by the end of the year.
Skakun, also on the board of directors, referenced the rejection of the city’s grant at the meeting and said the facility would be able to apply for grants in future years.
The museum’s executive director, Alyssa Leier, commented during the meeting that she hoped for clarification on grant eligibility from the city in future years.
After the meeting, Leier told The Citizen she was disappointed they had been rejected for a grant they thought they were eligible for.
When council discussed what to do with the remaining money at the April 23 meeting, most members said they’d reconsidered their decision since it was made.
Coun. Cori Ramsay, another regional district board member, said that while she had been concerned The Exploration Place would use the grant funding to pay down its line of credit, she thought that council had eliminated them from consideration prematurely and said she wanted staff to include the museum as it thought about how it wanted the remaining funds to be spent.
Skakun said he supported The Exploration Place being part of the consideration, but that he wanted them on the same playing field as the other applicants that had been determined to be eligible but didn’t receive funding.
He later asked whether they would be allowed to spend the funds on debt servicing should the museum end up selected again.
Director of civic facilities Andy Beasley said applicants expressing an interest in using the grant funds to pay off debts would have been automatically rejected.
Beasley later clarified that if staff were to use the same criteria used to form their original recommendations, The Exploration Place would likely be at the top of the list again as they had initially been successful.
Coun. Garth Frizzell said he was in favour of having the museum in the mix again. He wasn’t at the meeting where the decision was made, but he said he didn’t support removing their application for matters other than process.
Ramsay put forward an amendment putting the Exploration Place into consideration once again for the remaining grant funding. It passed with only Skakun in opposition.
The amended motion calling for staff to assess how the remaining grant funding should be spent passed with Mayor Simon Yu and Skakun voting against it.
