Marie says:
"Despite the impassioned pleas of 32 public speakers, the City Council voted for most of the cuts proposed by the Budgeting for Outcomes teams"

And you wonder why people don't show up to speak about things?

The city council will do what the city council wants to do no matter what the outcome.

Time for change!

So John Doe, in a city of 106,000 people would we be better off with a City Council that catered to whatever group of well-intentioned citizens showed up to each meeting?

Remember, the fewest number of votes received by the elected representatives was 7780 -- the most 17,138 -- far more than the 75 or so folks who attended last night. The Council did listen to the people who spoke and came up with some "creative" responses to their impassioned pleas -- without surrendering fiscal discipline in hard times.

It's not my role to defend our City Council. But as I emphasized last night, the professional staff don't make our recommendations on the basis of opinion polls. Long-term strategy for the City was set by the hundreds of citizens who worked for more than a year on the Ventura Vision back in 2000. That became the basis for the General Plan adopted unanimously by the City Council in 2005. Every month we track and report on our progress in achieving those goals. Each quarter we report those results publicly to the City Council and we report to the community on our annual results. Those long term goals were the basis for our Redesign Plan recommendations to the City Council. The Budgeting for Outcomes effort focused on how to achieve the long-term results desired by the entire community while reducing annual spending by $11.4 million.

Week to week, there will be dissent, criticism and questioning from concerned citizens. That's healthy in a democracy. But keeping a long term focus is vital to making real progress in a large and diverse community. That, in fact, was a key message of those who spoke out last night -- don't let today's hard times detract from Ventura's long-term commitment to a vibrant arts and cultural quality of life, bearing in mind the contribution the arts make to a strong economy. That's a worthy goal -- and one that the Council and the community have to balance with other worthy goals, like protecting public safety.

That balance is not easy in tough times -- for any of us. But that's the job of the City Council is responsible to perform, no matter who is elected to office.

Rick Cole
City Manager
City of Ventura

Rick Cole says:
"don't let today's hard times detract from Ventura's long-term commitment to a vibrant arts and cultural quality of life, bearing in mind the contribution the arts make to a strong economy"

The City Council certainly showed their "long-term commitment to a vibrant arts and cultural quality of life" by cutting funding.

Time for Change!

I probably should've said 31 speakers. I spoke at the very end. Realistically I knew these cuts had to be made. They need to trim $12 million.

So all I asked for was that they give us staffing to help with the non-profit foundation so we could raise money.

They did that and I'm grateful.

This person will do many other things, of course. They're down to a "skeleton crew" as they said in the meeting.

We may also be able to rescue the community services grants somewhat. That's a bit iffy. Our commission has asked that the city provide office space in the 505 Poli building for some of these groups which are about to go under water, too. I think that will happen as well.

I know for a fact that the art community is tight, and every artist is willing to help every other one, and hopefully that will be part of what we can do here.

There is a marketing and financial component to everything - including all creative and artistic endeavors. Private enterprise will tend to succeed at this better than city government. The person who got his Kevin Costner film ( "Swing Vote") promoted here last year had a plan and executed it. Private funding sources for the arts can be found at Philanthropy News Digest [ foundationcenter.org ]. They include all kinds of dollars and cents issues pertinent to the life of any vibrant local arts community.

Google: private funding for artists

The pain of cutting funding for the arts is happening all around the country. It is good that the council at least agreed to helping keep a staff member for fundraising. Without the capacity of staff and funding, the arts would be dead in the water.

There is a point about cultivating individual donors. About 80% of the majority of funding for non-profits comes from individual donors. The common place of some arts organizations losing touch with donors and relying on grants and government funding will need to change. It is time to start building relationships with individual supporters again!

However, the arts need help in one area that the city councils can support, they need more media coverage! Half the time the arts are not mentioned nearly enough in our news media, so organizations, even if they have existed for 50 years, may not be common knowledge to the general public.

I'm starting an arts coverage campaign if anyone is interested. It's a grassroots effort asking people to write to local media outlets for more coverage for the arts stating talking points such as the positive impact the arts have on the economy, education for children, community building, etc. Since you already have had conversations with your local city council, maybe they would agree to helping support such an effort. The more the word gets out about different art events and arts organizations, the more chance of having bigger and better audience and financial support.

If anyone is interested in writing a letter, a link is provided to find your local news which will have their contact information.

http://www.buildmyaudience.com/MediaCampaign.html

Marie,

One correction is that ArtWalk has not been entirely eliminated from the 2009-2010 budget, however its future is very dependent upon key partners and sponsorship by the Downtown Ventura Organization, the Visitors and Convention Bureau and the many local artists and arts organizations. Together we can guarantee that ArtWalk continues to bring thousands of visitors to enjoy the artworks featured on the Westside and in the Downtown Cultural District along with all of its fine galleries, shops and restaurants.

Denise Sindelar
Public and Visual Art Supervisor
City of Ventura

Marie,

I remain a stalwart supporter of both the arts and our programs designed to help the most unfortunate of our community. I am and have always been one of the strongest supporters as well for making public safety our highest city priority.

In the present budgetary situation, there has been a tendency to place these two important sets of programs against one another as if they were incompatible. They are not.

As our police chief has famously noted, securing the safety of our public goes far beyond providing police and fire protection. Heading off criminality is vital to effective public safety programs, and the arts and social services programs, especially where our youth are concerned, go a long way toward achieving that objective.

I was proud to propose the concept of reducing the cuts in the arts and social services programs to a level more commensurate with the mandate we have received from the public supporting them. The original Budgeting for Outcomes committee proposals that were presented to Council, in my view, reflected neither the public views on these priorities nor did they truly serve the public interest. Those proposals called for a cut in the arts that well exceeded 50% on the whole, while the cuts in public safety, while severe, approximated 10%.

There is no question that public safety is our community's number one concern and 98% of our people say so. Accordingly, we spend most of our city funds on public safety. What sometimes gets overlooked is that 64% of our people feel the arts and cultural programs of the city are also of substantial importance. While 98% is 50% higher than 64%, the cuts proposed were 400% higher in arts than in public safety. It was that disproportionality that I believe led the Council to seek a more moderate solution to the budget imbalance and look for alternative ways to support the arts.

I am glad they did, and I fully support their decision. We made a very good creative effort to try to meet all the needs of the city, and I congratulate my colleagues for seeing it that way and voting intelligently. In the end the arts will still be cut by 150% more than public safety is cut. It's a far better outcome and one far more commensurate to the expressed sentiments of our citizens and far more consistent with the long-term interests of our city.

Neal Andrews

Thanks, Neal. I appreciate your support of cultural programs.

Denise, I guess my post wasn't very clear about ArtWalk. Yes, it needs private funding to stay afloat. Today I heard about a fundraiser to do just that!

Also, the historic Dudley House in Ventura has a holiday boutique scheduled on the three weekends following Thanksgiving (Fri., Sat. Sun. all three weekends). They are willing to host some of the crafters who are displaced from the Holiday Street Fair as well as any performers. Anyone who is interested can email me.

The Dudley House is owned by the city and managed by a non-profit and I sit on the board.

Bringing funding back to the arts does take some initiative, but it can be done. Actually, it needs to be done. So make sure to check out Bebo.com/99problemsdotorg to see what we as a people can do

Perhaps the city should sell the Dudley House, generate some cash with the sale, and lease it back allowing the owner to generate some sort of tax benefit.

The WAV is in actuality being funded by we taxpayers ( who do you think the paper is ultimately being held by ) to the tune of $57,000,000.00 ( at least ); a fact which suggests the sale of the 13 condos on top of it, the many dozens of low rent "artist" apartments ( projected at $600.00 to $1300.00 per month ) and the 4-5 retail spaces within it will never come close to paying for - and there will be an event venue or two as well as some sculpture locations - that's about as great a "support" for the arts by government ( federal / state / local in this case ) in this community as any one of us will ever see. Thank this nation's taxpayers for covering the developer's back side.

The WAV is mostly financed through FEDERAL low-income housing tax credits, to be clear. There's quite a quite a bit of private fundraising in there as well.

The Dudley House needs to stay with the non-profit.

So, Marie, how much is "quite a bit of private fundraising" as against $57 million with interest ? Doesn't this strike you as one heck of a lot of money being poured into a group of buildings with absolutely no hope of ever being paid off as a result of rents or sales of condominiums ? I'm only raising a question that nobody else seems interested in asking. Rick Cole has been a very strong supported of this project. Maybe he can answer this question since he contributes to your blog.

It's part of our affordable housing stock and the federal low-income housing tax credits are a pretty standard way for private groups like PLACE to finance these projects, I'm told. It's heavily subsidized.

I very strongly support this project, too. In a down time when almost nothing is being built here except for Dan Frederickson's self-financed office building, the WAV is already providing 300 good jobs.

And, I might add, yay for Dan, too! :-) I'm a fan of his as well.

The difference between Dan's project and the WAV is the former is being responsibly financed with a bottom line - the latter is not. Simply saying it will be a part of the "affordable housing stock" does not at all diminish the fact that, for affordable housing, this is a Taj Mahal with no hope of the taxpayers who foot the bill and the interest ever paying it off. I note that "Place", which has never done another project in the short history of its existence, has no track record beyond the fact that the two kids whose name are on it worked at a similar place in another state. How about an indepth explanation, Rick ?

It is mostly financed by federal low-income housing tax credits. The program is run by the IRS and allows companies to invest in low-income housing, while receiving 10 years of tax credits. The program works with state housing finance agencies to administer the program on a state level. Housing credit units are privately owned by developers.

The two kids? Please! Here's Chris Velasco's bio:

Chris Velasco, President
Chris Velasco is the President and Executive Director of PLACE. Chris has been actively engaged in the creation of innovative communities and sustainable facilities for sixteen years. He has worked in over two hundred communities, and has been a leader in the creation of over $350 million of new facilities. Chris worked to develop some of the nation’s early leasehold housing cooperatives for artists. His projects have won numerous awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Institute of Architects and more. Chris was recently invited to submit an opinion paper to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on environmental policy for her Strategic Energy Fund. Chris is a frequent keynote speaker in the areas of sustainable arts, live/work communities, ethical development, community and economic revitalization and the environment.

Marie,
Your comments about Mr. Velasco are word-for-word from www.placeonline.us. That site lists only one project for their entire organization: the WAV. It lists an address in another state. At an earlier time you informed us that there were 100-plus parking spaces at the site. I suggested there were 27 and that is still the case. The funding sources listed on the site include the Weingart Foundation, a noted source of low cost housing funding - but when you open the reference to Weingart it does not exist. The funding sources also list several other local art-related organizations, one of which Mr. Velasco is a member of, but there is no mention of funding for the WAV on any of their data. The Placeonline site suggests rents of $388.00 - $963.00 / month with rents to be determined by HUD. The 13 condos to be sold are suggested to be part of the subsidization of the other low cost housing. I still maintain the US taxpayers are footing the bill - there just simply needs to be transparency, including that of Mr. Velasco.

Yes, John, I thought it was pretty obvious that I copied the bio from the web site and put it here.

Here is a portion of the email I received from Mr. Velasco regarding the parking at the WAV:

"It will have at least 102 parking spaces that are being created. The real number might be more like 130 parking spaces."

I suggest that you take one of the scheduled tours of the WAV and get all your questions answered that way rather than trying to find detailed financial information online. I am sure Mr. Velasco would be willing to answer all your questions and more. He is very forthcoming.

Deborah Pazen at the City arranges tours.