Fresno has $10.5M set aside from Measure P to support the arts. Why hasn’t it been spent?

Fresno’s arts and cultural groups are long accustomed to getting short shrift by City Hall.

“I don’t think we’ve ever given more than $100,000 (to the arts) in any given year,” former Mayor Lee Brand — a noted budget hawk — told me in October 2018 weeks before the city’s parks tax went before voters.

Four years later, a more contrasting picture can hardly be painted. Thanks to higher-than-projected revenues from Measure P, the city allocated $10.5 million in the fiscal year 2023 budget “to invest in competitive grants for nonprofit organizations that support and expand access to arts and cultural programming.” Based on current math, another $7 million will be added to the pot annually through 2050.

From $100,000 “in any given year” to $7 million. That’s quite a shift in voter-mandated fiscal priorities.

Ah, but there’s a catch. As stipulated by Measure P’s authors, no money from that piggy bank can be spent until city officials, in conjunction with the Fresno Arts Council and the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission, formulate a Cultural Arts Plan.

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Fresno began collecting the 3/8th-cent sales tax in July 2021, from which arts and culture programs receive a 12% share. The mandated spending plan has followed a slower, more deliberate timeline.

The first sign of progress occurred in April when the Fresno City Council selected Network for Culture and Arts Policy to develop the cultural arts plan and awarded the Brooklyn-based consulting firm a $150,000 contract.

Five months later, Fresno residents are being consulted. A Cultural Arts Community Survey launched Thursday on the city’s website (available in English, Spanish, Hmong and Punjabi), along with an informational video narrated, in English, by Mayor Jerry Dyer.

“Fresno is home to a diverse arts community and rich cultural groups. Measure P was designed to support and uplift these communities and reach even more Fresnans,” Dyer says in the video, neglecting to mention he opposed Measure P during his time as police chief.

“The cultural arts plan will identify needs in the arts and cultural arts communities, prioritize outcomes and investments and develop a vision and goals for the future of Fresno arts and cultural programs that are reflective of the cultural, demographic and geographic diversity of Fresno.”

Not sure what Dyer means by “geographic” diversity — Fresno is as geographically diverse as a cutting board — but otherwise it sounds good.

Survey, public meetings, interviews on arts plan

Besides the survey and video, public engagement efforts include a series of community meetings, stakeholder interviews and neighborhood canvassing. Interviews with local artists and arts practitioners are underway with the community meetings to be scheduled for October and November, according to Fresno Arts Council Executive Director Lilia Gonzáles-Chávez.

“It’s important that we get as many voices heard and as many ideas on the table so we can make grants that best represent the community’s wants and needs,” Gonzáles-Chávez said.

About how Fresno should spend its newfound arts and culture cash, there is sure to be no storage of ideas. Support of art festivals and cultural arts festivals should be a priority. So should investments in museums as well as venues used to showcase the arts. Local theater groups deserve a hand, as do painters, sculptors, dance companies and musicians.

Remember when Fresno used to have a municipal band and hosted frequent public concerts? Longtime residents do.

“Those things used to happen in Fresno, and they were all lost when we quit supporting the arts,” Gonzáles-Chávez said.

Thanks to the will of the voters, those days are over. Fresno suddenly finds itself flush with funds earmarked for arts and culture. But after so many dry years, we’ve created a new dilemma of sorts trying to decide how and where to direct those newfound monies.

According to Gonzáles-Chávez, the most optimistic date for the cultural arts plan’s completion is May 2023. Meaning very little of the $10.5 million in arts-allocated Measure P money will be spent during the current fiscal year. It will instead carry over to the 2023-24 budget, when another $7 million in projected revenues will be added.

That’ll be quite a staggering amount — $17 million — in a city where arts and cultural programs have long been treated as a drain on public finances rather than a community benefit.

“The beauty of this is we now have the resources not only to allow people to imagine what is possible, but to be able to follow through and actually create the things that feed our souls, uplift our spirits and give us joy,” Gonzáles-Chávez said.

“What better can a city do for its residents? I just feel it’s such an opportunity.”

An opportunity that hasn’t come along in decades.