I'm gonna

call the meeting of the Venetia City Council to order.

Um Ms.

Wolf, please call the role.

Council members birdside here, Larka Spada, here Mesenski Scott,

here

and Mary.

Here, and please join me in the pledge.

A

plaque stating the fundamental rights of each member of the public is posted at the entrance to the meeting room

for

Section 4.04.03 of the City of Venetia's open government ordinance.

We have no announcements, no proclamations, no appointments, but we do have one presentation.

And

so we'll move into that, and that's from the Arts and Culture Commission.

And I guess it'll happen, it'll be presented by uh Nima Heckbott and Greg Wilson.

And I would like to thank the community and uh for everyone's participation here tonight.

Uh, my name is Nima Hechmat, Chair of Venisha Arts and Culture Commission, and joined by fellow commissioner Greg Wilson, who will be presenting to you tonight the 2026 annual report, and we're joined with a special spice here tonight, Bart Wils Bart Sullivan is going to be uh providing some background music to spice things up for us.

Thank you, Bart.

So, what is the mission of the Arts and Culture Commission?

Uh, we are here to ensure that arts and culture is integral in the community, our quality of life, our identity, and it's part of our economic vitality.

And

that's what we're gonna talk to here tonight.

But is it does it really contribute to economic vitality?

You're all aware of the study that was done back in 2017 that showed that there's 1.8 million dollars incremental revenue back then in 2015 when this study was completed for Venetia businesses due to arts and culture events.

And mind you, this is uh if you count in inflation and just adjusting the cost of living uh and expenses, this number is probably much higher today.

We are serving our mission through our grantees and all the artists that work with us uh in a few different ways.

One is creating outlets for the arts and performing arts, uh, providing needed arts education outlets, uh, providing performance opportunities, especially for the youth, supporting uh publish publication opportunities.

Uh we have had significant engagement uh with arts and culture over the past year.

We're very pleased

and

honored uh to to report uh numbers with you here tonight.

Uh our estimates show that over 49% of Venetians have been directly engaged by programming that our grantees have been put on.

And it's easy to report a number, it's hard to do.

And our grantees have gone through a lot of uh blood, sweat, and tears to make this happen.

Significant volunteerism, significant stretching themselves thin to make sure that the job gets done, and this all is a testament to their dedication and commitment to our community.

They have been doing this uh with uh limited budget, and even a budget that has uh for understandable reasons has been reduced over time.

Uh what I really like to impress upon you tonight is and we're gonna be talking about is how they've been able to navigate these challenges uh to achieve uh their commitment to our community, and in doing so, they've been discovering new ways to be able to achieve uh impact, and mainly through the alliances have been created, and we'll be talking about that tonight.

So

I'd like to introduce the first grantee of several of all the grantees that we'll be talking about tonight, and that's Arts Benisha.

As you all know, that their mission is to stimulate, educate, and nurture cultural life in Venetia.

We all know about the significant impact they've had in our community, but how are they doing it?

It's a plethora of exhibitions and programs.

One example is where the spirit meets the bone, and having significant footprint in our community, working with different artists with different organizations, and this is again speaking back to how people how are our grantees navigating the challenges.

It's by finding different ways to work together and making each dollar go farther, as far as possible.

Uh, and examples of it are Venetia Art Festival that just happened, uh the STEAM program, uh, and various initiatives that they're doing to support emerging artists in our community.

In total, their impact has surpassed 5,000 people that they've engaged in our community in person as a result of the programs they've put on.

Voina is a group that we all are well familiar with with their mission.

It is inclusive, it's a no-audition professional music program for youth, for children.

And they celebrate diversity and they're nurturing leadership among our younger generations.

What's really notable about Voina is that they have put on several programs that have been have received significant traction in the community, very high engagement.

One of them is Ambassadors of Peace program.

Another one is the Voice of Freedom Performance.

There's three programs in May that they put on.

We're all aware of their participation in the community, such as the Benisha Public Art program that just uh was completed last month, and various other programs.

One of notable is that they were actually invited to Carnegie Hall and did a concert series, and they're invited back again.

In total, they've engaged over 4,500 people directly over the past year through their program.

Another grantee is the Benisha Ballet.

Their mission is to support and encourage local artists to develop their talents by providing open, affordable, accessible uh courses and programs to all residents in our community.

Uh something really to that's notable about Benisha Ballet is the significant number of programs that they've produced, including workshops, performances, free performances to make it accessible.