Kitchener city council votes to give THEMUSEUM $300K to stay open
CTV
Kitchener city councillors voted in favour of giving THEMUSEUM $300,000 to avoid being forced to close.
Kitchener city councillors voted in favour of giving THEMUSEUM $300,000 to avoid being forced to close.
THEMUSEUM has been in the City of Kitchener since 2010. It was originally the Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum which opened in 2003.
According to THEMUSEUM, the Children’s Museum financial model was unsustainable from the start.
“The Children's Museum was opened with a flawed financial formula, very little money. This was coming from grants and so on, and we inherited that. And we've been saddled with this underfunding ever since,” said David Marskell, CEO of THEMUSEUM.
On Monday night, after hours of debate, council unanimously voted in favour of giving THEMUSEUM the $300,000 it is asking for.
Councillors also voted in favour of an amendment to ask the Region of Waterloo to split the amount owed. So the city will be asking the region for $150,000 before July 1.
There was also an amendment on the table to defer the decision to June but it failed.
