This is an exciting and heady time for the Creative Community in Long Beach. The Tour Des Artistes this past weekend; long after the vendors had packed up, there were still people on Broadway, Elm, Linden and First. There was an excitement and euphoria that was contagious. Then there was the community meeting on the Art Exchange Project last week and at the Queen Mary there was an exhibition and competition of graphic design, animation and web design sponsored by the Tech Point Committee of the Chamber of Commerce. Gallery openings and live theater everywhere. There’s talk of an Animation Fair for students. And this doesn’t even include all the small businesses that have opened around town featuring the art and craft of local artists. You could almost get drunk with joy thinking about it.
It’s against this backdrop that the Arts Council for Long Beach is set to launch its Strategic Planning process to define clearly its future mission. The Council, formerly the Public Corporation for the Arts, has been here before. Back in December 2001, the Council issued a Strategic Plan 2002-2005. The mission statement then was summed up simply:
“The Public Corporation for the Arts fosters excellence in the creation and presentation of arts and cultural endeavors by supporting arts and cultural organizations and individual artists. The PCA provides access for families, children, and the community to a broad spectrum of creative expressions and cultural experiences by building strategic partnerships and programs that weaves arts and culture into the fabric of our community.”
All true. Yet, the challenge ahead for both the Arts Council and the entire city is how to do all this in times of political and economic uncertainty. The questions facing the Arts Council, the creative community and the broader community revolve around one central issue, quality of life. What kind of city do we want? How will we share our culture, our art, our literature, our dance and all the other creative modes of expression in a city as diverse as ours?
There’s been some serious and not so serious discussion about whether the vision of this city as “Iowa by the Sea” is dead or not. I’m not from Iowa. I’m from the South Bronx so I can’t comment on the state of Iowa. But, as a resident of Long Beach, I can comment on what I see and feel about this city and its creative community. It’s popping. Spend any time around this town and you can see and feel the dynamism. But there’s more to be done, to be built. And it will only happen when there is a true partnership between the creative community, the Arts Council for Long Beach, city government, the educational institutions, the business community, and the broader community that includes community organizations and residents.
The process for the Strategic Plan will be an open, inclusive, dynamic partnership between the Arts Council and the rest of Long Beach. I call upon all the stakeholders in this city to become involved. This Wednesday, June 28, at 7:30am (yes, it’s early) at the United Way Building, 3515 Linden Avenue, the Arts Council will begin the first in a series of Board of Director Workshops to hammer out an updated Strategic Plan. But, in so dong, they will also be laying out an arts and cultural agenda for all of Long Beach. All of us will have to address some of these questions:
- What is the grand vision for a culturally vibrant and diverse Long Beach?
- Who will build it and will they all come?
- How will we convince the political and business communities that the best prevention tool against crime and an incentive for raising the hopes of a community is to tap into their creative spirit?
- Who will pay for this grand vision and understanding that not paying for it will cost us all dearly in the future?
- Who will provide the leadership for building and installing this grand vision?
Long Beach is often described as the most culturally diverse city in America. I’ll leave that to the demographers to argue. What I do know is that it is diverse. This is an opportunity and a challenge to build a new Long Beach. It will not look like the Long Beach of 20 or 30 years ago. No city remains the same. Too many factors force it to adapt, to change, to face its constant rebirth. I only speak for myself here; I am a stakeholder and I intend to be a part of the process that will provide the vision and the plan for that rebirth. Please join all of us and you too will share the excitement from the heady times that surround us.
Antonio Pedro Ruiz, The Long Beach Creativity Network
1) What is the grand vision for a culturally vibrant and diverse Long Beach?
I’m not sure that what we need right now is a ‘grand vision.’ I think that, first and foremost, we need to have a process of self-discovery where we, as a community, explore what our values are, and what we need. We have failed in the past because individuals, or groups, assume that we know what the people of Long Beach want or need. We don’t. We need to ask, listen, and learn. We need to know what’s happening in our neighborhoods, in our communities, and find ways to nurture and support what we already have. Then, and only then, can we formulate a ‘grand vision.’
2) Who will build it and will they all come?
I think the City’s biggest challenge is allowing the creative community to flourish. Municipal rules are currently overly restrictive, and are based upon a reaction to old models, and not upon a commitment to nurturing the amazing resources already here.
3) How will we convince the political and business communities that the best prevention tool against crime and an incentive for raising the hopes of a community is to tap into their creative spirit?
A wise man once said that businesses don’t vote. People vote. We, as the creative community, must find innovative and effective ways of reaching out to our neighbors and help them to understand the value of what we do, and how they can help to make it flourish. If there is a ground-swell of grass roots support to change how our municipal leaders view, and support, the arts, the municipal leaders will do so, or be voted out.
4) Who will pay for this grand vision and understanding that not paying for it will cost us all dearly in the future?
This is a difficult question to answer in that it presupposes something that isn’t necessarily true. It assumes that there needs to be a “grand vision,” and that municipal funding is required to support it. I suspect that, if we take a pragmatic and operational view, there are a number of simple changes the City can make that would nurture the creative community without spending a single penny. Furthermore, such changes would actually create more revenue for the City by generating more business. I agree that there needs to be a plan, but I also believe that we can do important and far-reaching things right now.
In the last few years, I’ve made inquiries with municipal entities around the country where Cities have successfully balanced the needs of business, citizens, and the arts. In almost every case, the overarching success of all three was based significantly on a limited municipal role in entertainment regulation. I believe that our City’s leaders should start looking at other successful cities, and finding ways to implement their models here.
5) Who will provide the leadership for building and installing this grand vision?
Leadership should come from the Arts Council but they, through a consistent effort on their part, have become largely inconsequential to the majority of Long Beach citizens. Except for those directly involved in traditional municipal arts activities, the Arts Council is unknown. Even the municipal leaders who fund it use it as a tool to shift the responsibility for supporting the Arts off of their desks, and have little interest in embracing substantive changes, even when recommended by the Council. No clearer example of this is the complete failure by the Council to implement any significant parts of the previous Strategic Plan.
If we are to formulate a ‘grand vision’ for the arts, or even a modest one, we first must find out what the citizens know, what they need, and what they’d like. Without taking the time to tap into our City’s most valuable resource, its people, we are most certainly doomed to fail.
I’ll post a longer response to your response at another time. In the meantime, I can say now that we need to begin considering all options when it comes to both the government’s and the private sector’s roles in shaping the vision (and yes, we need one), the policy, and the implementation of both. From the blasphemous (dismantle the Arts Council for Long Beach and let the arts community fend for itself. I’m not kidding) to the wishful thinking (Increase funding to a minimum of $10 per resident, a movie ticket and a small popcorn and restore arts education and make it mandatory in all public schools). Back to the basic question, do the arts (and that includes all forms) mean something special to the quality of life in Long Beach and are taxpayers willing to pay for it. If not them, then who? More later.
One of the challenges we face is the perception that those who manage municipal funding for the arts make decisions in a vacuum, with little or no accountability from the city’s leaders, or the community. If we are to speak of funding we must also speak of accountability.
In 2004 Mayor O’Neill appointed an arts funding task force, and hired a consultant from Irvine for $50k. Many of the consultant’s recommendations were also suggested by local arts advocates, and many other suggestions made by the community were eliminated in the final report to the City Council. None of the recommendations were acted upon. All that energy and money was wasted.
The grass roots arts and culture activities that take place throughout the city each and every day do not depend upon municipal funding. They exist because they must, and thrive because they fill a need. When it comes to funding, the city’s strapped coffers are filled by everyone, but they support just a few groups that benefit a few rather affluent individuals.
I know that we should not get bogged down in ruminating on the past, or get caught up in placing blame, but it is crucial that we understand where we’ve been in order to know where we are, and where we need to go. It is easy to ignore the past but, like the old adage warns, we need not be doomed to repeat past mistakes.
So, how do we move forward? The only path I see is to garner broad participation in community dialogs, perhaps sponsored by local press, media, and with the help of municipal and community leaders, to assess the needs of the people who make up our fair city.
The Creativity Network’s own model would be wonderful. I can see a series of informal community networking events where people share what they value, what they’d like to see, and perhaps learn about the many other things taking place outside their neighborhoods. Through this dialog, we can begin to formulate a clearer understanding of where the City’s resources should be focused.
This is a long and arduous path, one that requires diligence and commitment. We won’t get easy answers, nor will the result be a simple solution to the challenges we currently face. Eventually, we will have a plan of action that speaks to the very hearts of the people of this city, one that will benefit from broad based support from an oft ignored majority and, as a result, not be so easily dismissed for the sake of political expediency.
If we make too many assumptions, or follow too closely in the well worn path, we risk making the very mistakes we now are struggling to remediate.
Sander, how can YOU get on the Arts Council?!
I guess that they’d have to invite me.
Sweden 1…
news…
The Fried Funk Food EP…
news…