A Squamish official says she’s on the hunt for $90,000 dedicated to maintenance of the Eagle Eye Theatre.
Since 1996, the District of Squamish has handed the Sea to Sky School District — which manages the facility as both a school and community theatre — $5,000 per year to help maintain the community theatre. That adds up to $90,000, money that seems to have been carried forward every year, Coun. Susan Chapelle said.
She received the theatre’s budgets dating back to 2004, all of which show the municipal funds went unspent, Chapelle noted.
“In that time there has been no maintenance done to the theatre,” she said.
The Eagle Eye Theatre’s lighting board runs on floppy disks that user groups are forced to specially order from Texas, Chapelle added. The theatre seats are falling apart, there is no storage for sets and the sound system needs work, she said.
“Every year there has been a carry forward of this $5,000 because the [theatre’s] maintenance has been paid for by user groups,” she said, noting those fees are exorbitant.
Chapelle is spearheading a group composed of stakeholders to draft a wish list of needed theatre equipment.
The school district has between $30,000 and $40,000 set aside in a reserve for the Eagle Eye Theatre, school district secretary treasurer Rick Ikebuchi said. Since the beginning, all the money has been divied out according to the municipal and district agreement, he noted.
“It clearly says it [the money] has been spent according to the agreement,” Ikebuchi said, referring to the theatre’s budget.
A committee set up to oversee the theatre will review the funding, he noted. The committee was created with the facility’s opening, but hadn’t been meeting recently, Ikebuchi said. A meeting is scheduled in the coming weeks and thereafter approximately every three months, he noted.
Squamish is at a deficit when it comes to performing arts space, Chapelle said. Currently the Eagle Eye Theatre can only be booked in four-hour blocks, which proves to be a challenge for many users, she added. Chapelle said she would like to see a person hired to manage the theatre to make it profitable. If the community could beef up its asset and make Eagle Eye Theatre’s booking more user-friendly, it would be the first step to turning that around, Chapelle said.
“We need to re-look at the organization of the theatre,” she said.
