December 10,2013

The meeting was called to order at 2:05 p.m.
 

1. Roll Call
   Commissioners Present:
   Kimberlee Stryker
   Marcus Shelby
   Janine Shiota
   Sherene Melania
   Charles Collins (entered at 2:14 p.m.)

   Commissioners Absent:
   None

   Staff Present: Tom DeCaigny, Lucy Lin, Judy Nemzoff, Robynn Takayama, Cristal Fiel, Tyese Wortham
    

2. Community Arts, Education, and Grants Committee Chair Report
   Commissioner Sherene Melania debriefed Commissioners on a conversation with Cultural Equity Grants (“CEG”) Interim Program Director Lucy Lin surrounding the displacement of individual artists and nonprofit arts organizations in the City and other issues, including emerging vs. established artists, outreach, and technical assistance. She asked to table these topics of discussion for the February and March Community Arts, Education, and Grants Committee (“CAEG”) meetings. Ms. Lin pointed out that the upcoming grant presentations will help inform these topics for discussion.

   Commissioner Melania called for public comment. There was none.
    

3. Cultural Equity Grants Review Panelists
   Ms. Lin presented five panelists for the Organization Project Grants (“OPG”) application review in January and February 2014.

   Commissioner Melania made the following motion:

   Motion to approve the following individuals as grant application review panelists for Cultural Equity Grants:

   Leticia Hernandez, Writer and Community Leader
   Julia Robertson, Multi-media Artist
   Janine Shiota, Producer, Writer, Project Coordinator, and Commissioner for SFAC
   Mica Sigourney, Artistic Director, OX
   Khan Wong, Senior Program Manager, City of San Francisco, Grants for the Arts

   Moved: Stryker/Shelby
   Public Comment: None.
   The motion was unanimously approved.

   Explanatory Document: FY14 Panelists Bios for approval
    

4. Individual Artist Commissions–Performing Arts Grants
   Ms. Lin presented an overview of the Individual Artist Commissions (“IAC”) ¬– Performing Arts: Dance, Music, Theater grant review process. Commissioners engaged in discussion around the parameters of the CEG legislation and demographics. Ms. Lin displayed historical data representing the number of applicants vs. the number of grantees, which indicated a spike for year 2011. Mr. DeCaigny explained that year 2011 was probably the worst year for the arts because the impact of the recession hit the foundations and private sector at that time. Commissioner Janine Shiota inquired about outreach and the rate of return on outreach. Ms. Lin explained that CEG worked with Director of Communications Kate Patterson to spread the word to the supervisor aides. CEG also conducted multiple workshops out of the cultural centers, where staff began to collect measurable date from participants. Mr. DeCaigny added that most people from the Town Hall meetings indicated that they hear about the San Francisco Arts Commission (“SFAC”) events from the newsletter.

   Ms. Lin concluded her presentation with a list of policy topics discussed among each panel, including smaller arts awards to emerging artists and applicant narrative quality. In particular, the IAC–Theater panel struggled with using the same criteria for evaluation to review hybrid theater works and traditional theater. Commissioner Charles Collins commented that this struggle might be due to the expertise of the panel. Ms. Lin suggested that this might be an indication of the need for a new genre called performance art under the IAC–Performing Arts grant category. Mr. DeCaigny pointed out that applicants are able to self-select their discipline in the application. Commissioner Melania suggested that the Committee refer to the National Endowment for the Arts’ application, since it has an effective breakdown of the artistic disciplines.

   Commissioner Melania made the following motion:

   Motion to approve recommendations to award 28 grants totaling $272,500 in the 2013-2014 cycle of Individual Artist Commissions–Performing Arts grants to the following individuals, and to authorize the Director of Cultural Affairs to enter into grant agreements with each individual for the amounts listed:

   Alleluia Panis, $10,000
   Byb Chanel Bibene, $5,000
   Christy Funsch, $10,000
   Laura Arrington, $10,000
   Ledoh , $10,000
   Lenora Lee, $10,000
   Lily Cai, $10,000
   Sara Mann, $10,000
   Scott Wells, $10,000
   Sean Dorsey, $10,000
   Gang Situ, $10,000
   Jon Jang, $10,000
   Lisa Scola Prosek, $10,000
   Melecio Magdaluyo, $10,000
   Melody Takata, $10,000
   Pamela Z, $10,000
   Ben Randle, $10,000
   Edris Cooper, $10,000
   Erin Bregman, $10,000
   Eugenie Chan, $10,000
   Kevin Seaman, $10,000
   Lynn Marie Kirby, $10,000
   Marisela Treviño Orta, $7,500
   Maryam Rostami, $10,000
   Megan Finlay, $10,000
   Mica Sigourney, $10,000
   Niloufar Talebi, $10,000
   Sean San Jose, $10,000

   Moved: Shelby/Stryker
   Public Comment: None.
   The motion was unanimously approved.

   Mr. DeCaigny expressed his gratitude on behalf of CEG for Mayor Edwin Lee’s increase in funding to $190,000. He explained that this additional budget allocation is why most of the IAC awards are full grant amounts. Mr. DeCaigny said that it was the first time in a while to fund this category fully, and it is great.

   Explanatory Documents: IAC guidelines; IAC panel rankings, project summaries, and panelist bios
    

5. Creative Space Grants
   Ms. Lin presented an overview of the Creative Space (“CRSP”) grant guidelines and criteria for evaluation. She noted that Mr. DeCaigny facilitated the CRSP panel.
   Mr. DeCaigny mentioned that this fund was also increased thanks to the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors. He shared with Commissioners that $200K in grant savings from the prior year had been work ordered over to the Office of Economic Workforce and Development (“OEWD”) to contribute to a joint competition that would be supporting capital investments in arts organizations and arts initiatives. The Executive Committee requested that recommended applicants only be allowed to receive one award, should they be recommended for awards from both funding sources. Mr. DeCaigny reported that in the case of Luggage Store Gallery, they were awarded a higher amount through the OEWD Central Market competition, which ultimately served the organization better.

   Mr. DeCaigny explained to Commissioners that the CRSP funding allocations were increased for the planning and major code and safety sub-categories. The grant amounts had not been raised in a number of years and were not sufficient to cover the true costs of code and safety expenses. Mr. DeCaigny continued to say that past funding amounts were no longer sufficient to cover costs associated with a robust capital campaign planning process.

   Mr. DeCaigny expressed that it was an honor to facilitate the panel and that the panel had a well-rounded perspective. He explained that the panelist represented a great breadth of the arts ecosystem in the Bay Area including capital projects, fundraising, executive directors, and estate expertise from the OEWD.

   Mr. DeCaigny and Ms. Lin continued to explain the grant selection and contracting process with Commissioners.

   Commissioner Melania made the following motion:

   Motion to approve recommendations to award 9 grants totaling $268,680 in the 2013-2014 cycle of Creative Space grants to the following organizations, and to authorize the Director of Cultural Affairs to enter into grant agreements with each organization for the amounts listed:

   ABADÁ Capoeira San Francisco, $15,000
   Acción Latina, $20,000
   Croatian American Cultural Center, $20,000
   Joe Goode Performance Group, $20,000
   Brava Theater Center/Brava! For Women in the Arts, $50,000
   Chinese Historical Society of America, $16,000
   CounterPULSE, $50,000
   San Francisco Mime Troupe, $37,680
   Women’s Audio Mission, $40,000

   Moved: Collins/Shelby
   Public Comment: None.
   The motion was unanimously approved.

   Explanatory Documents: CRSP guidelines; CRSP panel rankings, project summaries, and panel bios

    

6. Community Arts and Education: 3rd on Third Update
   Community Arts and Education (“CAE”) Program Director Judy Nemzoff reminded the committee that District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen’s office provided funds for 3rd on Third arts celebration in Bayview for the current fiscal year and for future years. Although CAE staff organized a series of summer and fall events for 3rd on Third, the intent was always to invest in it as a community-based project. Ms. Nemzoff said that the Arts Commission released a request for proposals for a Bayview based community organization or individual to manage the project.

   She followed that staff would have to rerun the panel process to follow agency-wide policy around public panels. She said that there was a minor technicality in the previous panel due to staff oversight, but that a new panel would reconvene to correct it. The hope was to bring the panel recommendation to the January Full Commission meeting.

   Commissioner Collins said that 3rd on Third was a great program and he looked forward to approving the panel recommendation.

   Commissioner Shiota asked about the number of applicants. Ms. Nemzoff said there was just one.

   Mr. DeCaigny said that the staff knew that it would be a small applicant pool because of the specific eligibility requirements in the grant application, such as experience working with Bayview merchants. He said that staff wanted to make sure the panel process was done well and that the Arts Commission would be able to identify an entity that worked well with merchants and had experience as using the arts as a vehicle for economic development. He said that this was important because the Arts Commission did not see this opportunity as a continued funding source, so it would need to transition smoothly to a community-run project.

   Commissioner Melania said that she thought it was a great program that could be carried into other districts. She was looking forward to seeing it continue in the spring.

   Mr. DeCaigny said that the panel recommendation would be calendared under the Committee reports during the January Full Commission meeting.

   Commissioner Melania called for public comment. There was none made.
    

7. Nonprofit Space Affordability
   Mr. DeCaigny said that this discussion was related to artist workspaces, venues, and offices. It was not related to issues on housing, as he believed that although this was an important conversation, it was a different one. He added that the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor’s office convened a working group of different City agency department heads to address the issues of nonprofit displacement in San Francisco (see Nonprofit Displacement Board Resolution in explanatory documents), which he sat on. The working group would cull together data about the issue and data about the arts would likely come from the California Cultural Data Project. Mr. DeCaigny said that there was also a cohort of nonprofit organizations that included Deborah Cullinan, executive director of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and another nonprofit arts representative that Mr. DeCaigny would recommend.

   Mr. DeCaigny then gave a brief overview of the two other explanatory documents. The budget and legislative analyst report was requested by District Six Supervisor Jane Kim. He said it was the first stab at assessing the issue of affordable space for nonprofits. He mentioned that it was important to keep in mind that the report did not include the arts community, but that it was fair to extract that there were similarities across all nonprofit services. Historically, when the City has responded to nonprofit displacement, addressing the arts was separate from the nonprofit sector. He said that this was worth a policy conversation.

   Lastly, Mr. DeCaigny said that the report from the Northern California Community Loan Fund (“NCCLF”) was of the Nonprofit Space Capital Fund (“NSCF”). During the first dotcom boom in the early 2000s, the NSCF was created to support the amount of permanent, available space to the nonprofit sector. For the arts, NSCF supported the development of the ODC Dance Commons and the Ninth Street Film Center.

   Mr. DeCaigny said that there has been conversation around how the cost of living increases did not really solve where the problems were for nonprofits. He said the idea of the working group was to make sure there was thinking around balancing both emergency and long-term needs.

   Commissioner Stryker recommended that the working group identify those who were in the position to deal with emergency needs versus those who were able to address long-term needs. She said that the SFAC might not be able to address emergency issues, but that the agency could play a role in long-term planning. She added that this might be an indication that a new Cultural Center was needed, or that the SFAC should work on fixing up the existing properties to stabilize nonprofits.

   Commissioner Collins said that there needed to be frank discussion around what was sustainable and what incubation was. He said that the SFAC needed to look at anchor institutions such as the City-owned Cultural Centers that need to carry the ball. He said that it was a chronic problem that San Francisco was extraordinarily expensive.

   Commissioner Melania left at 3:42 p.m. Commissioner Stryker took over as chair of the meeting.

   Mr. DeCaigny said that there had to be conversation about who would and would not benefit from various solutions. For example, for a new Cultural Center, you would have to think about if that was an equitable solution. He added that the SFAC was not historically a good landlord to the existing Cultural Centers because the City had an incredible backlog of capital needs across San Francisco. However, he has been thankful that Capital Planning has been addressing some of the capital needs of the Cultural Centers the past couple of years.

   The Committee then discussed the possibility of creating partnership with the young tech sector of San Francisco, as there was a lot of tension between new and longtime residents. They discussed the possibility of coordinating private, philanthropic investment in the arts.

   Commissioner Collins asked who was in charge of the conversation between the tech sector and the arts community.

   Mr. DeCaigny said that conversation was happening everywhere and that it did not just sit with one person or organization. He believed that the SFAC needed to play a better role in convening. He said the conversation was very helpful thinking and that part of the strategic plan was for the SFAC to become more of a convener.

   Commissioner Collins commented that he did not get a sense that there was a center of gravity around the conversation of the arts as there was for housing or medical. He suggested that organizations needed to gather and have a collective voice.

   Commissioner Stryker suggested that the Cultural Centers might start meet and greets with tech companies just to get the dialogue started. Commissioner Shelby said that he would love to be a part of that. He believed there was an opportunity to step in and think about creative solutions for working together.

   Mr. DeCaigny said that it would be great to think about how to create a space or structure that was inviting to both the arts and tech sectors that was mutually beneficial, because of the high tension in the community. He added that corporate philanthropy was always the smallest contribution to the nonprofit sector.

   He concluded that he saw three topics emerge from the discussion: 1) convening and how to help contribute to a healthy conversation, 2) financing issues and whether there could potentially be a community art stabilization trust, and 3) thinking about anchor institutions and who would decide who would get the resources.

   CAE Program Manager Robynn Takayama added that Santa Monica leadership recognized the high cost of living but placed a high value on the creative community and wrote affordable gallery space and housing for artists into their request for proposals for development of the new subway station.

   Commissioner Stryker called for public comment. There was none made.

   Explanatory Documents: BLA Nonprofit Rents; Nonprofit Displacement Board Resolution; Nonprofit Space Capital Fund Report
    

8. Viewing of Sights and Sounds of Bayview
   Ms. Nemzoff gave a brief overview of the Sights and Sounds of Bayview project, which was a partnership with local public radio station KALW with funding support from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (“SFPUC”). There were eight stories about people who live and work in the Bayview neighborhood and reflected its diversity. Each of the stories featured music produced by Bayview musicians including BAYCAT, 3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic, Dynamic, and DJ C-Los. The Committee viewed the video for the story featuring Bayview boxer and Olympic hopeful, Raquel Miller.

   Ms. Takayama said that the project included a live event that showcased a live read of the stories while photographs were displayed larger than life as well as guest performances by story features James Martin and the senior women who do line dancing at a senior citizen center in Bayview. The sound was mixed live by NPR’s Snap Judgment producer Stephanie Foo. The feedback for the project has been very positive and several outcomes have occurred including partnerships developed between Raquel Miller’s boxing coach who is now training the youth of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (“P.O.W.E.R.”); BAYCAT and KALW; and College Track with Tracy Zhu and Having Pride, who were featured in the series.

   Ms. Takayama added that one of the line dancers has since passed away, so the women were happy to have her documented in the video. Another woman from the line dance class said when they came out to perform, it felt like she was on TV; and an audience member said he felt that this brought the community together.

   Ms. Takayama concluded that she would love the Commissioners’ help to get the word out about the videos and stories.

   Commissioner Stryker called for public comment. There was none made.
    

9. Public Comment
   There was no public comment.
    
10. New Business and Announcements
    There was no new business or announcements.
     
11. Adjournment
    There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:24 p.m.

CF 12/23/13 - draft minutes posted
CF 01/06/14 - minutes adopted
________________________________________
Translated written materials and interpretation services are available to you at no cost. For assistance, please notify Program Associate Cristal Fiel, 415-252-3145, cristal.fiel@sfgov.org.

我們將為閣下提供免費的書面翻譯資料和口譯服務。如需協助 Program Associate Cristal, 415-252-3145, cristal.fiel@sfgov.org. 

Materiales traducidos y servicios de interpretación están disponibles para usted de manera gratuita. Para asistencia, notifique a Program Associate Cristal Fiel, 415-252-3145, cristal.fiel@sfgov.org.