Why is Fresno’s arts community suspicious of City Hall? It’s a matter of (mis)trust | Opinion
Fresno’s politicians and bureaucrats, for at least the past two decades, haven’t engendered much trust with the city’s arts community.
Which helps explain why so many leaders of Fresno’s music, theater and dance organizations, its museum directors and historical society presidents suspect that City Hall is trying to screw them over.
Especially now that millions of dollars generated by Measure P and earmarked for nonprofits that “support and expand access to arts and cultural programming” are scheduled to be awarded by late summer.
These suspicions, which have been simmering for months, resurfaced once again during Tuesday night’s Parks Arts and Recreation Commission meeting.
During a scheduled hearing about the Cultural Arts Plan, more than a dozen speakers criticized several aspects of the 67-page draft released for public consumption, and demanded that commission members and Fresno Arts Council be directly involved with the revision process before the plan heads to the Fresno City Council for final approval.
“After months of work, we are not in a good place right now,” said Stephen Wilson, president and CEO of the Fresno Philharmonic. “The plan needs substantial rewriting, and time is wasting.”
Fresno began collecting the 3/8th-cent sales tax in July 2021, from which arts and culture groups are to receive a 12% share. However, as stipulated by Measure P’s authors, no money from that piggy bank can be spent until a Cultural Arts Plan is formulated and approved.
Prepared by the Network for Cultural and Arts Policy, a New York-based consulting group, the initial draft of the Cultural Arts Plan was released earlier this month. Of the 32 recommendations, the most controversial is one that calls for creating a new branch of the city’s parks department “dedicated to expanding citywide arts and culture.”
Measure P contains no mention of an arts division within Fresno’s parks department — officially titled Parks, After School, Recreation and Community Services. Furthermore, the city already has an agency dedicated to expanding citywide arts and culture whose role is clearly defined: the Fresno Arts Council.
Did city staff ‘dominate’ arts plan?
Where did the idea to create an arts division under the umbrella of the PARCS Department come from?
That’s where things get murky.
A scathing letter signed by the leaders of several local arts organizations lays the blame on city staff. They assert PARCS “dominated” the Cultural Arts Plan’s development and that the initial draft “betrays a striking lack of knowledge and understanding of the local arts community.”
“The PARCS Department obviously sees itself as supplanting the Fresno Arts Council in connection with Measure P, directly in contravention of the ordinance’s language and the intent of those who drafted and voted for Measure P,” the letter states.
Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council, contended in a separate interview that city staff “cloistered” the consultant — preventing a genuine, unscripted dialogue with local artists and art organizations.
“I don’t believe it’s the consultant that is the problem here,” Gonzáles Chávez said. “It’s the way the consultant has been engaged with the city that is the problem here.”
Those claims were disputed by Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White, who stated city staff had limited involvement in the Cultural Arts Plan draft and that the idea of a new arts division came from the consultants themselves.
After hearing complaints from Gonzáles Chávez, White said she personally investigated claims that PARCS staff or even a “rogue staff member” exerted too much influence, and found no evidence of that occurring.
“The recommendation (to create an arts division) came straight from the consultant,” White said. “I know (the local arts community) doesn’t believe that.”
Email ignites Measure P mistrust
The mistrust didn’t materialize out of thin air.
Measure P states that funds earmarked for nonprofit art organizations and artists must be awarded through competitive grants administered by the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission “in partnership” with the Fresno Arts Council. But months after Gonzáles Chávez submitted a proposal last fall, she received an email reply from PARCS Director Aaron Aguirre indicating the city would manage and administer the arts funding.
“When that happened, we decided this is not OK,” Gonzáles Chávez said.
The city and Fresno Arts Council have yet to reach a deal over how the latter will be compensated for sifting through dozens of grant applications and making recommendations.
However, at its May 25 meeting, the City Council passed a resolution directing White to bring back an administrative services agreement with the arts council within 30 days.
While claiming she is “not bound” by that window, White said she expects the deal to get done shortly.
“There’s no disagreement; we just haven’t gotten to it yet,” White said. “I’m very confident we’ll come to an agreement.”
White is on the record saying the PARCS Department, which she oversees, should not be involved with the arts. But that doesn’t mean the controversial recommendation should’ve been removed from the draft before its release as desired by Gonzáles Chávez and others.
“That’s what the process is for,” White said.
What we’re seeing now is what happens when the local arts community doesn’t have much trust in that process.
Can’t say I really blame them.
