As I left the “Create Long Beach” event at the Museum of Latin American Art on Saturday, I was feeling a bit melancholy. In many ways it was a success. For example, it was well attended by the usual arts and culture folks, including a few new faces. The organizers clearly worked very hard to put the event together. There was a feeling of enthusiasm and optimism in the air, and all kinds of great ideas were flying around the room.
It was, fundamentally, a moderated brain-storming session about six pre-selected topics, each with several sub-topics. The topics were the basis of six break-out discussion groups. Each group had four 20 minute ‘sessions’ where different groups of people could speak to the topics while facilitators maintained focus, and others wrote feverishly, capturing ideas as they arose.
Introductions were made by Robert Swayze, manager of the Economic Development and Cultural Affairs Bureau, and Arts Council Board President Justin Hectus. Then Marc Goldring, a hired consultant from the Boston based Wolf Brown company, gave an overview of the process and topics. More on Marc a bit later.
The six main topics were “Strengthening inclusive cultural leadership to identify, advocate for, and obtain the necessary financial and human resources,” “Encouraging more effective use of cultural assets, including venues, districts, organizations, and programs in support of economic development,” “Fostering a sustainable ecology of ‘creative individuals’ and collaborative, innovative cultural organizations of all sizes, ages, disciplines, and locations,” “Emphasizing a range of creative learning opportunities for residents of all ages to support a citywide culture of creativity,” “Improving communication and collaboration within the cultural/creative sector and between the cultural/creative sector and the larger community,” and “Building on Long Beach’s diversity to strengthen cultural/creative participation throughout the City and its neighborhoods.”
All of these main topics had subtopics. I’m not going to list them all here but, just to help you grasp how things worked, here are the subtopics for ‘Cultural Leadership’: “Leadership roles for Arts Council for Long Beach and Economic Development and Cultural Affairs Bureau,” “Stronger connections between arts and culture and local business,” “Ensure that arts and culture interests are ‘at the table’,” “Mix of earned and private sector contributed revenues,” and “Increased public sector support, both financial and in-kind.”
There were lots of ideas that didn’t fit neatly into any of the main themes. For example, many people were talking about the role of government, and how it could modify existing municipal rules to foster the development of natural synergy amongst arts related activities and businesses. This relates to economic development, collaboration, neighborhoods, leadership, and… well, you get the idea. It would have been nice to have a specific ‘Government’ discussion.
I would have also welcomed a specific forum to discuss alternatives to the existing municipal arts funding model. The Arts Council for Long Beach started a long time ago, and served a specific purpose. Now that resources are tight, we have an opportunity to explore other models that could better or more efficiently serve the needs of the City. When I last checked, about half of the funds committed to the Arts Council by the City are spent on staff and other operating expenses. I believe that a new model could lower, or even eliminate, that overhead.
Back to Marc Goldring, the hired consultant. Wolf Brown has a who’s who of clients that goes on for pages, including the Public Corporation for the Arts, now the Arts Council. Marc is the one who, more than 10 years ago, helped formulate our last Cultural Master Plan. We paid his company lots of money to craft the document which, as soon as it was completed, was almost entirely ignored. It is likely that the City’s failure to implement it resulted from the PCA’s inability to adequately advocate for its implementation.
Now, however, the Arts Council has a commitment from the City to include the updated Cultural Master Plan in the overarching 2030 Plan, under development by the Planning Department. This may be enough to ensure the new Cultural Master Plan finds broad support. Also, we are fortunate to benefit from a new crop of creative, intelligent, highly motivated volunteers serving on the Arts Council’s board. Their vision and hard work may be significant enough that, this time, when all is said and done, we’ll actually end up with meaningful and positive change.
I’m really an optimist at heart, so why these feelings of melancholy? I’ve been doing this arts advocacy thing for a long time, and being in the room with the large post-its and the colored pens made me remember all the other times I’ve been in other rooms with the exact same group of people, more or less, with post-its and colored pens, writing down the exact same ideas, and hoping that, somehow, this time will be different. I sincerely hope that, this time, it will be.
UPDATE: I contacted Justin Hectus, Board President of Arts Council for Long Beach, to answer some of the questions raised here. He said that the grant from the LACAC was for $24K. I got the number wrong. He said that WolfBrown was paid $32,000. When asked about the source of additional funds, he said “We have had to cobble those from a number of individual, corporate and foundation donors.”