Sacramento Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy Commission Special Meeting - August 19, 2020
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Sacramento Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy Commission Special Meeting - August 19, 2020
The Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy Commission held a special meeting on Wednesday, August 19, 2020, to allocate $7.5 million in CARES Act Creative Economy Recovery Program Grants. The meeting, which ran from 9:00 AM to approximately 2:40 PM with a lunch break, involved reviewing panel recommendations, declaring conflicts of interest, and approving funding allocations across multiple grant categories. Commissioners debated funding priorities, reduced requests by approximately $2.5 million, and passed motions to approve the allocations. The meeting concluded with a call to action for commissioners to advocate for additional funding from the City Council.
Consent Calendar
- Allocation of Additional $2.5 Million: The Commission unanimously approved the acceptance of an additional $2.5 million in CARES Act funding for the Creative Economy Recovery Program, bringing the total to $7.5 million. This funding had been approved by the City Council the previous night.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments were made during the meeting.
Discussion Items
- Overview and Process: Raymond Gargano (Arts Program Coordinator) presented an overview of the program's timeline, statistics, and the application process. He highlighted that the creative economy was significantly impacted by COVID-19, citing that the arts and entertainment sector was the most impacted industry, and that over 40% of arts organizations nationwide believed they might not survive the pandemic. The original $89.6 million CARES Act allocation included $20 million for arts, creative economy, and tourism, with the Commission now managing $7.5 million.
- Conflict of Interest Declarations: Multiple commissioners declared conflicts of interest for specific applicants. Cecily Hastings (her business and a nonprofit), Rick Gott (family member and affiliated organization), Andrea Lapore (a business associate), Priscilla Enriquez (board member of Fairy Tale Town), and Julian (a community panelist) recused themselves from related votes.
- Roberts Family Development Center: Staff reported that the organization was under an active city audit. The Commission voted (with one recusal) to remove the organization's program grant (requesting $183,000) from the funding list due to risk, but to consider their reimbursement request with the condition that if the audit was not resolved by mid-November, the funds would be reallocated.
- Panel Recommendations and Reductions: The Commission reviewed panel recommendations for each category, with total requests of $7.6 million against $5.1 million available. After extensive discussion, they adopted a tiered funding approach (e.g., 100%, 75%, 50% of requests) tailored to each category's scores and needs. They also implemented a $100,000 cap for creative business reimbursements and a $10,000 cap for individual artist reimbursements, with the intent to prioritize these unmet needs in a potential second round of funding.
- Final Adjustments: To meet the budget, the Commission voted to eliminate funding for the two lowest-scoring applicants in several categories, and reduced the Square Root Academy grant by $220,000, resulting in a balanced allocation of exactly $5.1 million.
Key Outcomes
- Motion Passed: The Commission unanimously approved the allocation of the additional $2.5 million in CARES Act funding (all commissioners present voted yes).
- Funding Allocations Approved: The Commission approved funding for all grant categories as follows (with recusals noted):
- Nonprofit Arts Education Reimbursement: Approved (Rick Gott recused).
- Creative Business Reimbursement: Approved (Cecily Hastings, Isela Perez, Rick Gott recused).
- Cultural Equity Investment Reimbursement: Approved (Cecily Hastings recused).
- Arts and Cultural Equipment Reimbursement: Approved (no recusals).
- Individual Artist Reimbursement: Approved (Andrea Lapore recused).
- Arts Education Program Grants: Approved (Priscilla Enriquez, Rick Gott recused).
- Collective Programs: Approved (no recusals).
- Cultural Equity Program Grants: Approved (no recusals).
- Directives and Next Steps: Staff were directed to email the final funding summary to commissioners. The Commission urged members to contact City Council members before the August 25 meeting to advocate for additional funds, with a recommendation that any new funds be used for reimbursements. A special meeting may be scheduled if additional funding is received.
Meeting Transcript
Hey, we're going to open our uh special meeting uh called uh today nine o'clock. Um will you take roll call please? Okay, good morning everybody. Rick Gott. Not yet here. Uh one moment Cecily Hastings present Maya Wallace here, Andrea Lapore here, Isala Perez, Donnie Blumenstock, Luisa Lavulo. Steve Winlock. Here Priscilla Enriquez here. Melinda Wilson Raimi. Oh, I saw her. Here, sorry. We have a quorum. Great, thank you. Thank you, commissioners, all here, and uh also our uh our uh worthy guests that are here with us to help us with uh looking at uh this awesome task of us looking at making sure that we're allocating the um the carers act funding. So I'm gonna start with first uh the first uh agenda item allocation of the additional cares uh acts uh creative autonomy recovery grant funding of 2.5 million. Turn this over to Ray Raymond Gargane, our arts program coordinator. Ray I know he was here a second ago. He's uh he's muted. It's the uh phrase of 2020, Ray. You're muted. No, I knew that. So I am trying to let people know how to get into this meeting. I'm getting texts and emails because this is we've been doing most of the panels on Zoom. This one is an actual commission meeting, so it's not helping me telling people now to go to the city of Sacramento website because they're not on yet, but hopefully we can spread the word if people are on now. All right, so the first agenda item is just an approval by uh uh the commission for the additional 2.5 million dollars that uh city council approved for us, and they actually approved it last night on the agenda, so we just have to accept that, correct, Manuelin? Yeah, that is correct. Yes, so I will ask if we have a motion to accept the uh funding, the 2.5 great second. Is there an is there a second, please? I seconded, Andrea. So Maya Wallace uh uh moved it and Andrea seconded. Correct. Great. Any um any uh comments, discussion from questions? Hello clarification would love some here. So they allocated another 2.5 million last night in addition to the 7.5 that we already had. Is this in place of the 7.5 that was part of the initial 20,000 20 million, or is this a uh different thing? So Donnie, um, just as clarification, the original allocation from city council back um a couple months ago was five million dollars. There was discussion at the dais to add from um council member Hansen to add an additional 2.5 that actually needed to go through a process, get the city council to have it officially allocated, which they did yesterday, and then you all are officially accepting that it's really just the administration administrative action. Good not to hear you, Donnie. Sorry, I said we've been betting on the cum as the gamblers would say all right, thank you. Uh hearing no other questions. I asked uh call for a vote. Uh Melan, would you uh please uh roll call please? Okay, Rick Gott. Yes, Cecily Hastings, yes, Maya Mood. Maya Mood. Andrea Lapore, she seconded. I'm sorry, Donnie Blumenstock. Yes. Steve Winlock.
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