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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 07/25/07 Work Session M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall July 25, 2007 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, Mike Clark, ,Jennifer Solomon, Alan Zelenka. COUNCILORS ABSENT: George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: Cultural Policy Review Final Report Mayor Piercy noted the many members of the Mayor’s Cultural Policy Review Committee who were present at the meeting and expressed appreciation for the work of chair Tina Rinaldi and co-chair David Kelly, staff, and the consultants. Ms. Bettman arrived. Mayor Piercy thanked the members of the committee, which included Ms. Rinaldi, Mr. Kelly, Bill Blix, Kurt Boyd, Cheryl Crumbley, Alan Evens, Mindy Linder, Jerry McDonnell, Kaz Oveissi, Gretchen Hult Pierce, Richard Scheeland, Tim Smith, Betty Snowden, Rex Stevens, Yvonne Stubbs, Mary Unruh, Kari Westlund, Rick Williams, and Margarite Zolman. City Manager Dennis Taylor emphasized the creativity and commitment that went into local arts and suggested there was still room for modernization and improvement. There were gaps that needed to be addressed, and the committee’s final report contained many positive recommendations to create a framework for the future. Cultural Services Division Manager Laura Niles thanked the council for funding the committee effort. She thanked the committee members and asked them to stand to be recognized. Council members acknowledged the committee with applause. Ms. Niles thanked consultants Marc Goldring and Claudia Bach for their contributions and for the work they did with the community. Ms. Niles discussed the tradition of performing arts in the community and the support demonstrated by the community, which led to the creation of the Hult Center and to the support shown today. She also suggested that the arts offered local residents career opportunities and helped to attract bright and intelligent people to the community. The arts sector was a sustainable business sector that attracted other related industries. She MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 25, 2007 Page 1 Work Session cited the Hult Center as an example. Ms. Niles noted the access to real life arts experiences that University of Oregon students enjoyed. She said the cultural policy review offered a variety of opportunities to enrich the arts sector and add value to all aspects of life in Eugene. Mr. Goldring provided a brief overview of national trends in the arts scene. He highlighted the value of the arts in bringing people together. Ms. Bach discussed the conditions the consultants found in the Eugene arts scene, emphasizing the lack of central coordinating entity. Mr. Goldring emphasized the richness of the report provided to the council and suggested that given the increased awareness of the value of arts and cultural nationally, the community could not afford to rest on its laurels, but needed to work toward both sustaining what it had and toward greater understanding of what needed to be provided for future success. He said the committee’s recommendations focused on the priority strategies identified through the planning process. Mr. Goldring said the report addressed a 10-year period, and while all the strategies called out in the report were important, implementing the top five priorities first could help implement the lesser priority strategies over time. He also suggested that some of the lower priority strategies might come about sooner than strategies with a higher priority due to funding availability. Ms. Rinaldi thanked the council for funding the effort, the mayor for appointing her the chair, the council for its direction during committee check-ins, and the committee for its work. She reviewed the committee’s priority strategies and identified involved parties. 1. (Strategy 1.1) Establish an “Alliance” for arts and culture that will coordinate and strengthen the efforts of the public, private, and nonprofit cultural sectors and foster high- level civic leadership in support of arts and culture. City of Eugene, Chamber of Commerce, and local business, cultural and civic organizations) 2. (Strategy I.2) Define a broader role for the City of Eugene relative to arts and culture and provide the necessary staff and budgetary support. 3. Strategy I.3) Establish and fund a dedicated endowment or trust for Eugene’s cultural or- ganizations to increase public and private sector financial support for arts and culture. (City of Eugene, Cultural Organizations, Oregon Community Foundation, Oregon Cultural Trust, Private Sector Businesses, and Community Philanthropists) 4. (Strategy I.4) Conduct a thorough review of Hult Center operations to develop, if necessary, a new mission and implement a new operating model that will support that mission in a long- term, financially sustainable way. (City of Eugene) 5. (Strategy III.4) Implement a coordinated awareness campaign to highlight the value and strength of Eugene’s arts and culture. (City of Eugene, Cultural Organizations, Proposed Al- liance, CVALCO, Chamber of Commerce, LAC, Civic Organizations, UO, and LCC.) Mayor Piercy called on the council for questions and comments. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 25, 2007 Page 2 Work Session Ms. Taylor thanked the committee. She emphasized the importance of the arts to Eugene, although she acknowledged she continued to be embarrassed by the City slogan, “The World’s Greatest City of the Arts and Outdoors.” Ms. Taylor said upon her arrival in Eugene she had been amazed about how much was available with regard to the arts. She believed that some of the organizations that existed in the past had “died away” because there was no place for them in the Hult Center. She asked if there would be more coordination in the use of space, and if the committee considered the possibility of a downtown theater divided into different spaces. Ms. Niles thought there was the potential for such a theater and many community members who would support it as alliances were built. She said that such theaters were found in other communities. Ms. Taylor said the Atrium used to be a great space for theater when the Oregon Repertory Theater had been housed there. Ms. Taylor said that the Lord Leebrick Theater and Actors Cabaret Theater needed additional space and she thought the City and the whole community should give them money. She said that those organizations had succeeded in delivering really good theater against all odds. Mr. Pryor commended the committee’s report and emphasized the investment people had in realizing the goals of the report, which he termed thorough and achievable. He thought it had a huge benefit to the community with regard to the quality of life and quality of livelihood. He thought the role recommended for the City by the committee was also achievable. The City, in partnership with others, could serve as a catalyst and lend support to achieving the recommendations. He liked seeing the words ‘coordination,’ ‘cooperation,’ and ‘comprehensive’ in the report. He thanked the committee and said it could not have done a better job. Mr. Pryor suggested that this was “just the beginning.” Ms. Ortiz agreed with the remarks of Ms. Taylor and Mr. Pryor. She thanked the committee for the work it had done and acknowledged it was a labor of love. She expressed appreciation to Mr. Goldring for his remarks about the importance of the arts in schools, which she thought was not said enough. Mr. Clark also thanked the committee, consultants, and staff. He commended the report and said it would serve the City for years. He grew up in Yakima, Washington and was very familiar with that community’s Allied Arts Council, first formed in 1962 by the City Council. He had grown up with the alliance in place, and as a youth had attended a special arts school one day each week, which was well-integrated into the community. He found huge value in that. As a father of two young children, he appreciated the work the committee did on their behalf. Mr. Clark spoke to the subject of financing the report’s recommendations, which was of some concern to him. While he would vote to accept the report, he was concerned that it was being implicitly prioritized over other high-priority needs such as street maintenance. He suggested that transportation was a higher priority than the arts, and that the council consider going to the community for funding to implement the report. Ms. Bettman also thanked the consultants and the members of the community that produced the report. She was impressed with the quality of the report and the relevance of its recommendations. She had no problem supporting the report. She agreed about the richness of the local arts scene, to which everyone in the community had access. Ms. Bettman observed that her two children had access to the arts even when her family had less money. People frequently talked about Eugene’s access to the beach and mountains, but it had an extraordinary MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 25, 2007 Page 3 Work Session amount of high-quality events for a community its size. She agreed as to the fragility of the arts organiza- tions, which had to reinvent themselves over and over again. She said that cultural attractions were important to the economic vitality of the community and downtown. Speaking to financing, Ms. Bettman said that that City proposed to place $50 million on the table to subsidize retailers downtown without looking at the range of options that existed for how to best leverage that money and do the necessary economic impact studies and give the public the best value for the money. She believed that the implementation of the report should be funded through urban renewal money. Mr. Zelenka commended the committee, the consultants, and staff for producing a realistic and doable plan. He found the arts to be a high priority, and a city that lacked arts and culture was not a city in which he wanted to live. Speaking to the issue of funding, Mr. Zelenka suggested the City faced a continual balancing act in what it wanted to fund, and he thought that to be a thriving city to attract people in a new economy, such investments were needed. People would be more mobile and transient in the future and would be attracted to places with a strong cultural presence. Referring to Strategy I.1, related to the formation of the proposed alliance, Mr. Zelenka asked how the alliance would be formed and what the City was paying for. Ms. Niles said that staff envisioned that an implementation team would be formed to ensure the plan did not sit on a shelf. The team would provide a foundation to get the alliance going. She said the money would provide staff resources, materials, and supplies to the committee to ensure it had a good foundation. The department would look to its internal resources to the degree possible, but she acknowledged some gaps in existing funding. Mr. Zelenka asked what the Hult Center operational examination would encompass. Ms. Niles anticipated a consultant would be hired to examine operations, gaps in services, data collection, and the financial operations of the center. That might lead to a change in the center’s mission. At this time, the mission of the Hult Center was to serve the broadest community. If a consultant recommended changes to the City’s operations or financial model, that would be included in the report. The last study completed was not so in- depth and had not addressed the Hult Center’s future bottom line. Referring to Strategy V.3, related to a coordinator to put together an arts plan, Mr. Zelenka suggested that was a function of the proposed alliance. Ms. Niles said a Public Art Committee had been formed at City Manager Taylor’s behest, and it advised the City on its implementation of the public arts ordinance. The establishment of a public arts coordinator was a lower priority item that had been implemented as a result of the committee’s formation, and the coordinator would staff that committee and be a permanent staff member. Ms. Bach said a public arts plan would provide guidance to the committee as it implemented the ordinance in a more targeted manner that was dovetailed with other community priorities. City Manager Taylor added that the quality and maintenance of the art as well as the space for the art were all committee topics. The City had a long tradition of allocating money for public art but it had not always placed its arts expenditures in a larger framework. Mr. Zelenka asked if the West Broadway Advisory Committee had discussed how its work might impact the provision of public art downtown. City Manager Taylor suggested that staff and the arts committee could work in the same time frame as the West Broadway Advisory Committee to make recommendations for public art in association with the West Broadway redevelopment project. Acting Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services Director Renee Grube concurred with City Manager Taylor and indicated that staff would have more information when it had more clarity about the budget. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 25, 2007 Page 4 Work Session Mr. Zelenka suggested that the West Broadway Advisory Committee could add on to its charge regarding the open spaces to discuss public space. Mayor Piercy agreed. Mayor Piercy was glad to hear that the Chamber of Commerce was open to playing a role, and suggested the schools also be engaged in a discussion of “what we do together.” She also liked that the City’s diversity goals were being looked at through the lens of the arts and hoped that arts could be integrated into all of the City’s priorities. Mayor Piercy said she liked the City’s slogan. She thought there was strength in the combination of the arts and outdoors, and while Eugene might be not the greatest such city in the world, she thought it offered many great things to the community and its visitors. Ms. Solomon understood the need for the alliance and asked if it was the committee’s expectation that the alliance would eventually become self-supporting and self-funded. Ms. Rinaldi said yes. The City would convene the group initially, which would become independent or perhaps attached to a civic group such as the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Solomon said she thought urban renewal money could only be used on capital infrastructure. City Manager Taylor said it could be used for eligible activities, and that could include facilities, land assembly, or construction. He said the Hult Center was not in the downtown urban renewal district, but the City might be able to use urban renewal funds as a part of a coordinated effort in both districts to support implementa- tion activities. Responding to a question from Ms. Solomon, City Manager Taylor recommended that when the report had been costed out, a proposal for funding would be brought back to the council for adoption. Ms. Ortiz, seconded by Mr. Pryor, moved to accept the Cultural Policy Review final report, and to direct the City Manager to initiate implementation and identify funding for Priority 1 strategies during the FY09 budget realignment process, and initiate additional strategies that can be accomplished with the help of community partners and within existing resources. Ms. Taylor reminded Mayor Piercy that when she spoke in Russia she had said the City was aspiring to be the greatest city of the arts and outdoors rather than claiming it was the greatest city of the arts and outdoors. She said that $100,000 was the same amount the City paid for property options downtown and she thought the arts was a better expenditure of such money. She suggested the City could use urban renewal money to fund construction of a theater downtown. Ms. Taylor agreed as to the importance of arts in the schools and said the “No Child Left Behind” Act was helping to destroy arts in the schools. Regarding the issue of coordination, she thought coordination and information would be good and pointed out that in other communities the library was frequently the custodian of such information. Mr. Zelenka encouraged everyone to participate in the West Broadway Advisory Committee process through its discussion of open space or the mix of proposed uses. He said the August 3 First Friday Art Walk would include a community involvement even and a public forum was scheduled the next day. Mr. Zelenka asked how the endowment worked. Ms. Rinaldi anticipated the implementation committee would determine that. The intention was that it would be both public and privately funded. It would be used for community arts grants. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 25, 2007 Page 5 Work Session Ms. Taylor congratulated the manager on his recommendation regarding coordination of the one percent for the arts funding. Ms. Bettman urged the public to review the urban renewal plan. She maintained that anything could be funded as long as it benefited the urban renewal area, including projects and activities outside the bounda- ries. City Manager Taylor said the City had a rich infrastructure and great resources but the community could not rest on its laurels and must refrain from being a mile wide and an inch deep. He noted the changing demographics and interests and wanted to seize the moment to ensure that the community was a step ahead in taking advantage of the opportunities presented by those changes. He said the implementation team needed to consider that. The motion passed unanimously, 7:0. The meeting adjourned at 1:05 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Angel Jones City Manager pro tem (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 25, 2007 Page 6 Work Session