Executive_Committee
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 MEETING of the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
3:30 p.m.
25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 70
Minutes
Commission President P.J. Johnston called the meeting to order at 3:45 p.m.
- Roll Call
Commissioners Present
P.J. Johnston
Jeannene Przyblyski
Sherri Young
Commissioners Absent
Maya Draisin
Staff Present
Director of Cultural Affairs Luis Cancel
Deputy Director Nancy Gonchar
Community Arts and Education Program Director Judy Nemzoff
Cultural Equity Grants Program Director San San Wong
Development Director Rachelle Axel
Commission Secretary Sharon Page Ritchie
- Director’s Report
Mr. Cancel began by proposing that the Commission institutionalize a regular planning process, building on the work done at the Summer 2007 retreat. He proposed setting an annual planning meeting for a date between the middle of November and the beginning of December. This would prepare the Arts Commission to go into the next year’s budgetmaking cycle with clear and agreed-upon priorities, and with the information and statistics to make a strong case for the agency’s budget proposal.
President Johnston endorsed the idea, cautioning that it can be very difficult to find a date that everyone can agree on. He encouraged Mr. Cancel to settle on the final planning date soon to allow as much notice as possible.
Commissioner Przyblyski noted that open meeting and Sunshine requirements provide an incentive to do planning in the committees’ meetings; streamlining the project management aspect of committee meetings would allow time to talk about planning and more substantive questions.
President Johnston pointed out that although Commissioners express the wish for more time to discuss substantive issues, they are sometimes so busy that the committees do not have quorums, or the Commissioners feel rushed when they do meet. He said that Commissioners will have to anticipate longer meetings in order to delve into more complex issues.
Recalling that the retreat revealed a desire to have more substantive full Commission meetings, which began to happen at the end of 2007, President Johnston said he would like to see staff presentations on current projects and programs at these meetings. He cited the public art project presentations as having been very illuminating to the full Commission. Commissioner Przyblyski agreed, suggesting that an hour and a half is not too long for a meeting. Commissioners agreed that when there is a significant public presence, it is appropriate and important to allow enough time for public comment.
Mr. Cancel expected to propose a suggested meeting date by the April 7 full Commission meeting, and will work backwards from that date to set intermediate planning conversations.
Turning to the budget, Mr. Cancel explained that the Mayor had called a meeting of department heads for which he would shortly have to leave, with more serious cuts expected to be announced.
He discussed the Mayor’s recent statement of priorities for the City, pointing out that the arts were not explicitly mentioned, but that the arts agenda had to be inferred from other priority statements. Mr. Cancel explained that he is looking at how to interweave the Arts Commission’s role with other City agencies, how to use the existing staff resources to support the Mayor’s initiatives. He has identified two areas of priority: first, Sunnydale Housing has significant “quality of life” issues, including a persistent graffiti problem, and the City has invested more than a million dollars without corresponding visible success. Mr. Cancel argued that if people in a community feel ownership in an asset, it will be well-maintained. He proposed teaming up artists, the community and the Housing Authority to create community-based murals. Second, he has recently toured the north of Market theater district, and the adjacent area of Taylor Street between Golden Gate and Ellis. This highly visible area has one boarded-up storefront after another. City Administrator Ed Lee, with Real Estate, Grants for the Arts and the Arts Commission, is spearheading an effort to provide affordable spaces for the arts community, both visual and performing arts, in this district. Mr. Cancel noted that these are privately-owned buildings. There may be inducements such as free or reduced rent for a period of time, or the City may be able to provide some material support, such as paint or building supplies, to help attract artists and other creative people to go into the area and begin changing the environment.
Commissioner Przyblyski noted that the Mayor discussed the arts in his inaugural speeches, and has promised a later speech focused on the arts. Mr. Cancel reiterated that it was sobering not to have the arts included in the priority document distributed by the Mayor’s office.
Mr. Cancel left the meeeting for the Mayor’s budget meeting.
- Deputy Director’s Report
Ms. Gonchar said that she had nothing to report at the moment, and was waiting to hear what the Mayor would say regarding the growth of the projected deficit.
- Cultural Equity Grants Organizational Project Grants (“OPG”)
President Johnston began by explaining that this motion had been carried over and amended from the Community Arts, Education and Grants (“CAEG”) Committee’s meeting on March 11. The motion was amended to include four additional grantees: Artspan, the Black Film Festival, Poor Magazine and Small Press Traffic. He noted that Supervisor Mirkarimi had come to address the CAEG Committee on behalf of the Black Film Festival, encouraging the Committee to find a way to fund it both because of its quality and because of what is going on in his district. President Johnston did not think the Supervisor was familiar with the grants panel review process.
That Committee had a long discussion, believing that larger issues were involved: beyond the dispassionate panel process, is there, or should there be, a way to consider the broader context of what is funded in each community? They affirmed the importance of the independence of the panel review process, and the Committee’s longstanding reluctance/unwillingness/disinclination to interfere with it.
President Johnston explained that staff had identified discretionary funds which allowed the Commission to make grants to the next four organizations according to the panel’s rankings.
Public Comment: Thomas Simpson, Artistic Director of AfroSolo Theatre Company, spoke, commending the Commission for deciding to add funds rather than decreasing the amount awarded to each of the organizations. He was concerned about some Commisioners possibly not understanding the panel process, and suggested that they sit on panels, reading the many proposals and sitting in the conference room for several days discussing them. Referring to his own service on panels at the Arts Commission and elsewhere, he said it would damage confidence in the panel process; why would the panel and staff do so much work if the Committee simply overrode its recommendations? He also asked whether anyone who was not funded could simply go to their Supervisor and ask him or her to intercede with the Commission on their behalf. He asked what would happen if the organization or artist in question were much farther down in the panel rankings. Finally, he hoped that the discretionary funds did not reduce the overall grants budget.
President Johnston thanked him for his comments, noting that Mr. Simpson had addressed all the important issues. He said that he intended to have a larger discussion with the Commission regarding its use of discretion.
Ms. Gonchar noted that Commissioners often serve on panels reviewing Public Art projects. Commissioner Przyblyski, Chair of the Visual Arts Committee, added that she has insisted that each of their panels include a Commissioner, both for the education of the Commissioners and to incorporate the Commission’s perspective into the panel’s deliberations. When the Committee has questions about the panel’s deliberations, the Commissioner can explain their thinking.
Commissioners expressed concern about the scoring system, explaining that it was very difficult, without further information, to understand how a difference of less than a point could make the difference between being funded and not being funded. They agreed that panel comments are helpful in this regard.
Cultural Equity Grants (“CEG”) Program Director San San Wong explained that the scoring system has been adopted nationally, and is used by such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. She explained that each number is tied to demonstrated quality in regard to each criterion. She then asked whether the Commission has clear and articulated priorities which are not currently incorporated into the criteria and should be. She added that the CEG criteria come out of the Cultural Equity Initiative legislation, which was passed after a long fight to fund arts in the community. She urged the Committee to consider that history. She further explained that she has initiated policy discussions with each panel at the end of their deliberations, and intends to thoroughly evaluate each of the granting programs.
Mr. Simpson added a comment, endorsing the agency’s decision to fully, or nearly fully, fund fewer organizations rather than giving small grants to a larger number.
Commissioners and staff discussed how the panel rankings are translated into funding decisions, noting that the quality of applicants is rising, while the amount of money available is falling. Thus, a relatively small difference in quality between two proposals can make the difference in such a competitive and extraordinary pool of applicants. One of the considerations is whether the applicant is a good investment for the Arts Commission.
Ms. Wong discussed the difficulty in publishing panel comments quickly, explaining that the staff’s notes taken during the long panel discussions must be compiled, edited and reviewed before they can be released into the public record.
Commissioners said that they did not want to see interference in the panel process, and did not want to open the door to disgruntled applicants seeking to overturn the panel. The Committee agreed that passing this motion was a one-time action to allow the OPG grants to be disbursed quickly, and that the Arts Commission is reviewing its process in the meantime.
With this caveat, the following motion was approved.
Motion: Motion to approve recommendations to award forty-eight grants totaling $596,750 in the 2007-2008 cycle of Organization Project Grants (“OPG”) to the following organizations, and to authorize the Director of Cultural Affairs to enter into grant agreements with each for the amounts listed:
509 Cultural Center/Luggage Store, $15,000
Afro Solo, $15,000
American Indian Film Institute, $12,000
Arab Cultural Center, $12,000
Arab Film Festival, $12,000
Army of Lovers, $7,150
ArtSpan, $12,000
Asian American Women Artists Association, $7,600
Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC), $12,000
Campo Santo, $15,000
Charming Hostess, $12,000
Cuba Caribe, $12,000
Cypress Performing Arts Association, $12,000
Dancing Tree, $12,000
Dandelion Dance Theater, $12,000
Deborah Slater Dance Theater, $12,000
Del Sol Performing Arts Organization, $12,000
Distortion 2 Static, $12,000
Door Dog Music Productions, $15,000
Erika Shuch Performance Project (ESP Project), $15,000
EXIT Theatre, $15,000
Femina Potens, $12,000
Global Women Intact, $12,000
Intersection for the Arts, $12,000
Joe Goode Performance Group, $15,000
Kid Serve Youth Murals, $12,000
La Pocha Nostra, $12,000
Litquake, $12,000
Living Word Project, $12,000
Manilatown Heritage Foundation, $12,000
Out of Site: Center for Arts Education, $12,000
Poor Magazine, $12,000
Precita Eyes Muralists Association, Inc., $12,000
Root Division, $12,000
SAFEhouse, $12,000
San Francisco Black Film Festival, $12,000
San Francisco Camerawork, $12,000
San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest, $15,000
San Francisco International Arts Festival, $12,000
San Francisco Live Arts, $12,000
San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, $12,000
Scott Wells and Dancers, $12,000
ShadowLight Productions, $12,000
Sixth Street Photography Workshop, $15,000
Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center, $12,000
Stepology, $12,000
The Playwrights Foundation, $15,000
Yerba Buena Arts and Events, $12,000
Following the vote, Ms. Gonchar acknowledged that the agency has an enormous capacity problem, with staff continually called on to do more. The Committee discussed this strain, noting that short-term and one-time solutions can create new challenges even as they resolve old ones. They cited the new Native American Arts and Cultural Traditions grants and the discussions leading up to their creation. Finally, they commended staff for their work.
- Public Comment
There was no further public comment.
- Adjournment
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:03 p.m.
spr 4/3/08
