Museums and arenas axed in Norfolk County's gruelling budget process

It's a little two-storey log cabin made in 1849 with hand-hewn timber. Next door is an 1810 smokehouse, one of the oldest buildings in Norfolk County, used to smoke meat in the days before refrigeration.

The Teeterville Pioneer Museum is an homage to a time when the village was one of the largest towns in Norfolk, before Teeterville was mostly destroyed by fire in 1897. And soon, even the museum will be gone.

Closing the museum was one of a number of controversial decisions Norfolk County council made last week as county council deals with what it says is a financial crisis. For years, says Mayor Kristal Chopp, previous councils drained reserves to keep taxes artificially low, and ignored growing issues, and now sacrifices must be made.

The Teeterville museum, with an annual operating budget of about $39,000, will close and its items will be dispersed to other museums.

The county will also issue requests for proposal for private or community operators to manage each of Norfolk's five arenas, and will close a sixth ice surface at the Simcoe Recreation Centre. If there are no successful proponents, the motion says, another arena will close in September.

The county will also transfer the Norfolk Arts Centre — located at Lynnwood, an 1850 national heritage site in Simcoe — back to its former management board. It will also "amalgamate" the arts centre and the county's archives at the Eva Brook Donly Museum nearby, and the Donly museum will close and have its contents distributed to remaining museums. Museum consolidations, the motion says, will save $80,000 this year.

The city will also move the Simcoe Seniors Centre and put its current home, an old mitt and glove factory building dating back to 1891, up for sale.

The county's operating budget for 2020 has an average tax increase of 8.4 per cent.

Norfolk spends about $20 per resident on museums, the county told CBC News, while the provincial median is $6.

Distinct communities

Jan Rainey would like to see museums spared. The Waterford ginseng farmer is a member of Save Our Stories, an informal citizen coalition that wants the county to spare Norfolk's cultural touchstones. They're a comparatively small part of the budget, she says, and add a lot to a community.

Norfolk has a half dozen museums and a population of 64,000 people. But it's a mostly rural county of towns and villages, Rainey said, and each has its own distinct flavour and history.

"They have different stories," said Rainey.

"We were afraid that they were only going to look at the cost without examining the intangible benefits of the museums in our communities."

Exhibits in Norfolk museums show the distinct histories. The Delhi museum, for example, has a model tobacco kiln, and has a display about mass immigration to the area in the late 1800s.

Arenas as community meeting spots

The Port Dover Harbour Museum had a recent exhibit celebrating 100 years of the Arbor, famous for its hot dogs and Golden Glows. Teeterville has pre-fire artifacts, music concerts and an annual vintage tractor drive, and is attached to an 1872 school house that will also be up for sale.

The heritage and culture budget, Rainey said, is about $1.5 million. The Save Our Stories effort has also grown to encompass people concerned about arenas.

"Some of them that are in the far part of the county — for instance, Langton — the only thing they have as a central meeting spot is their arena.

"It's just not like in the city. That's what worries us. It's just not the same."

Wesley Wilson, a former summer curator at the Teeterville museum, says community histories like the fire that wiped out most of Teeterville "are told through a museum."

'Hidden gem' status

These stories are "what defines a community," he said. Without museums, "the identity is lost and the community doesn't know where it came from. It loses its history."

The changes are the start of "a multi-year plan to fix the county's extensive financial issues," the county said in a media release this week. From 2015 to 2018, it said, Norfolk's expenses increased an average of $6.2 million per year, and its revenues are only increasing about $4.4 million per year.

Last week, council unanimously voted to sell off some of its own land, and to look for another "service delivery model" for the Simcoe Farmers Market. Next year, it will slash the library budget and look at closing a pool in Delhi.

Council also voted last week to cut $210,000 from the tourism and economic development budget, leading to the departures of two top staffers this week. Last year, the county said, it spent more than $1 million on tourism and economic development.

"Norfolk County should be a haven for entrepreneurs, but we lag behind neighbouring municipalities in attracting creative business people," Chopp said in a media release. "We should be a premier destination for travelers from all over the country, but instead we're still a 'hidden gem'. It's just not acceptable."

Community hub planned

Meanwhile, Norfolk is also planning new recreation services in the form of an "ALL Norfolk Community Centre," otherwise known as the HUB, on the outskirts of Simcoe.

The centre, the county website says, will include "two NHL-sized arenas," an eight-lane pool, a community kitchen, a seniors centre and an innovation centre, and is aimed at retaining young residents. The county has asked the federal and provincial governments for $36.5 million to build the centre. A property search shows the county bought the land at 682 Ireland Rd. for $3,239,000 on Oct. 31.

Rainey said she understands Norfolk is in a time of austerity. But she's concerned the cuts are happening without a plan. Culture, she said, can't be reduced to numbers on a page. And she worries more cuts are coming.

"It's such a small part of the budget," she said, "but offers so much back to the community."