Taxpayer-supported Orchestra London paid executive director Joe Swan’s teenage son $1,500 to consult on plans to build a publicly funded concert hall downtown, financial records obtained by The Free Press show.

At the time, in the summer of 2013, Swan was a city councillor and the $72,000-a-year head of the orchestra while his son, Andrew Swan Greer, was either 17 or 18 and learning to become an elite ballet dancer at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre.

Orchestra London was part of a consortium, called Music London, that was competing with the Grand Theatre for public support — and potentially more than $45 million in public money — to lead construction of a new performing arts centre to replace Centennial Hall.

An Orchestra London invoice, submitted for repayment to Music London, lists $7,395.44 paid to four parties involved in the then-nascent project.

Joe Swan himself was paid $1,374.38 for “meeting space/business plan printing.”

Another $1,500 went to an Andrew Greer, listed as a consultant on “business plan design/development.”

Swan’s son is usually named professionally as either Andrew Swan or Andrew Swan Greer, an apparent nod to his mother’s maiden name.

Neither Joe Swan nor Andrew Swan Greer could be reached for comment. A young woman answered the door at Joe Swan’s home Thursday, and while the ex-politician didn’t come to the door, he said to a Free Press reporter: “Please get off my front step.”

Joe O’Neill, the orchestra’s board president, confirmed it was Swan’s son on the invoice.

He defended the hiring, while acknowledging the optics might not look good.

“I guess there are some optics that might cause some concern but (Joe Swan) wasn’t making these decisions unilaterally,” O’Neill said this week.

Those who knew of the hiring included volunteers at Music London, O'Neill said. One leader of that group, former London police chief Murray Faulkner, tells the Free Presshe didn't know Swan's son had been hired as a consultant.

Swan Greer’s experience as a dancer made him a suitable choice, O’Neill says, especially since Orchestra London needed to quickly complete a business plan without a budget to hire experienced consultants.

“One of the critical aspects was to make sure the facility was suitable for dance,” O’Neill said. “Andrew was asked, I believe, to do all the research and background about what would be required technically and aesthetically.”

But few if any details about dance and ballet made their way into a June 2013 business report that was heavy with glossy photos and light on detail.

Dance and ballet were mentioned in just eight sentences, most of them predictions of collaboration. That’s $187.50 a sentence.

O’Neill’s explanation — that Swan Greer’s hiring was defensible and necessary due to a lack of funding for professional consultants — raises two questions:

Why is he listed on the invoice as Andrew Greer, when in many other media references he’s listed professionally as either Andrew Swan or Andrew Swan Greer, including past Free Press stories and a recent news release announcing he’d won a prestigious $10,000 scholarship?

Why did Joe Swan charge $1,374 for “meeting space/business plan printing” expenses if the organization he was leading had little cash?

Orchestra London tried to recover the cash from Music London, the group formed to push for a music hall, the invoice shows. O’Neill suspects it did recover the funds, though he wasn’t sure.

Asked if Swan Greer had experience designing dance venues, O’Neill said, “I have no idea.” Nor did he know how much time Swan Greer spent doing research.

As for hiring a relative, O’Neill said he had no misgivings and wouldn’t have objected if his own daughter, also an avid dancer, was hired.

It’s not clear from O’Neill or the business plan why Swan Greer was needed at all because Music London also solicited free advice from established dance groups in London.

“Input was also obtained from various music and dance groups in the area about their needs,” Music London member David Canton wrote on his blog at the time.

Orchestra London is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Its financial mess was first uncovered by The Free Press, which reported Dec. 10 that a six-figure budget shortfall had pushed the taxpayer-backed organization to the edge of financial oblivion.

Concerts soon were cancelled, its offices locked and Joe Swan resigned. O’Neill’s plea for a $375,000 lifeline from taxpayers was rejected by city council.

Orchestra fans are owed a combined $285,000 for tickets to now-cancelled concerts — refunds are highly unlikely — and employees went unpaid in the weeks before Christmas.

It’s estimated those employees, including musicians and stagehands, are owed a combined $215,000 in unpaid wages.

Orchestra London also owes $110,000 to the Canada Revenue Agency, money the government could try to recoup from O’Neill and his fellow board members personally.

Orchestra London, as constituted, appears doomed.

Its demise also may fatally wound the ambitious proposal for a concert hall/condo towers development on the site of Centennial Hall. That plan, the one for which Swan Greer was a paid consultant, is from the Music London consortium, but Orchestra London was arguably its backbone.

The project would require $16.7 million from city hall and a combined $30 million from Queen’s Park and the federal government.

It had little public or political support, even before the Orchestra’s financial demise. But shortly after getting rejected by city council in late December, O’Neill wasn’t ready to give up the dream.

“The concert hall initiative is being put forward by Music London,” he said. “This is probably a very good situation where you’ll be able to determine that, even if Orchestra London is not in the state it was before, Music London still is because it’s a different organization.”

patrick.maloney@sunmedia.ca

jonathan.sher@sunmedia.ca

--- --- ---

What the Music London business plan for a new performing arts centre says about those arts:

Let’s Dance!

Celebration Centre (the proposed performing arts centre) will, for the first time in London’s history, have a home-grown professional dance company. They will produce a professional series and arrange local dance competitions and programming of the highest level of excellence. Collaborations with the Winnipeg and the National Ballet Company are being developed now. Also included will be the stars of tomorrow in all disciplines from music, dance, multi-disciplinary, family and educational programming, and many other creative art forms. Working collaboratively with the University of Western Ontario dance program, the London Contemporary Dance Collective and the numerous dance studios in London, the Centre will offer an exciting and dynamic professional dance series and support local dance competitions that will rival the best in Canada.

--- --- ---

DANCE AND BALLET

The Community Dance and Recital Studio is designed to be a highly flexible “black box” space that will be used for professional dance series and community music events, corporate functions, rehearsals, recitals, as well as social events. The studio’s flat floor space will accommodate rehearsals, small receptions, meetings, recitals, rotating exhibits and can be used as a holding area for large stage productions. The room will hold up to 400 people.