Status on Arts and Culture Commission Operations
Since September 2021, several AC5 Commissioners and the Managing Director have submitted letters of resignations:
- September 27, 2021, former Chair Ben Miyaji (District II) resigned.
- September 27, 2021, District III Commissioner Grant Taylor resigned.
- September 28, 2021, District IV Commissioner Elizabeth Wood resigned.
- January 3, 2022, Chair Silvia Ledezma (District I) resigned.
- January 4, 2022, Commissioner Joan D’Onofrio (At-large 3) resigned.
- January 4, 2022, Managing Director Jenny Balisle resigned.
- February 4, 2022, Commissioner Joe Arandia (District V) resigned.
In addition, Senior Deputy County Administrator Dennis Bozanich, who used to provide oversight to the AC5, resigned from the County Administrator’s Office effective December 29, 2021.
AC5 Commissioner Dawn Lopshire was appointed to the District IV seat on January 11, 2022.
Attachment 1 is a current membership roster for the Arts and Culture Commission.
Despite the above-mentioned resignations, the following Arts and Culture Commission programs will be continued through June 30, 2022, with support from contractors and the County Administrator’s Office:
Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country. All Contra Costa County High School students, grades 9-12, are invited to enter Poetry Out Loud. School winners advance to the County competition, then the State competition, and ultimately to the National Finals.
Veterans and their family members are provided with a series of free self-portrait painting classes under the ABOUTFACE program for the purpose of addressing the needs of veterans and improving their lives through art programming. It is based on the belief that individuals have the capacity to heal themselves.
Art Passages is a changing exhibition program at the County Administration Building (1025 Escobar Street, 1st floor, Martinez) highlighting the Arts and Culture Commission of Contra Costa County’s signature programs and initiatives. Exhibitions showcase artists, arts organizations, and diverse creative expressions representative of Contra Costa County.
The AC5 includes two non-voting Youth Advisor members. Each Youth Advisor will be a high school or college student. Each Youth Advisor will be interviewed and recommended by the Commission for appointment by the Board of Supervisors for a one-year term. Youth Advisors will perform individual Commission-approved service projects during their respective terms. The Youth Advisors will be expected to attend all Commission meetings and other Commission activities as needed.
With the California Arts Council’s grant funding, the County will develop and implement an Impact Project. Conversations are currently underway to confirm project concept. The purpose of the CAC grant is to highlight systemic/structural racism, education, poverty, cultural/social justice, or environmental sustainability in response to COVID-19.
With support from the CAC Jump StArts planning grant, the County will develop the concept for an art project to serve justice-involved youth at Juvenile Hall. Community workshops and public presentations will identify a strategy, actions, and a timeline for the implementation of an art project for the County’s justice-involved youth.
A copy of the FY 21-22 Work Plan for the Arts and Culture Commission is included as Attachment 2 to provide more information regarding the programs provided by the Commission.
In addition to the previously mentioned organizational changes, an annual Measure X investment of $250,000 was approved by the Board of Supervisors on November 16, 2021 to support the following arts and culture programs for the County.
$100,000 Support Staff:
- Supplement existing funding for a full-time Managing Director and part-time communication and marketing support.
$100,000 District Public Art Program:
- District Public Art Program: Contra Costa County’s first public art program following Bay Area Counties ($20,000 each District investment).
- Addresses District public art requests through an application process for artists and art organizations.
$50,000 New Programs:
- Youth Advisor in each District: Expand equity and opportunity to every District.
- Arts Connection: Connect artists and art organizations for quarterly meetings for advocacy, opportunities, and data collection.
- AIRS (Artist-in-Residency in the School) pilot program: Place teaching artists in CCC schools to work with students to create art projects.
The FY 21-22 Adjusted Budget for the Arts and Culture Commission is $152,430. As of December 31, 2021, the Arts and Culture Commission’s total expenditures for FY 21-22 was approximately $40,000. CAO staff anticipates that the Commission expenditures will include another $60,000 by 6/30/2022, bringing the total expenditures in FY21-22 to be approximately $100,000. This estimate is based on ongoing expenditures by contractors, program related supplies, and other IT costs to continue the budgeted art signature programs through the end of the fiscal year. At the end of FY 21-22, staff expect that AC5 will have a total fund balance of approximately $50,000 primarily due to Managing Director resignation, consultant contract savings, and under-utilization of the Impact Projects grant funds.
Phase One Interim Report for the Arts and Culture Prospectus
In August 2021, the County executed a $30,000 contract with Barbara Goldstein from Art Builds Community (ABC) consulting team to develop an updated Arts and Culture Prospectus for Contra Costa County which will act as a “community action plan and identify art projects that are specific to the unique needs of the supervisorial districts.” The scope of work included project initiation and research, community outreach and engagement, and the creation and presentation of the Prospectus.
Between August 2021 and December 2021, the ABC consulting team interviewed available AC5 Commissioners (Y’Anad Burrell, Joan D’Onofrio, Sylvia Ledezma, Ben Miyaji, Elizabeth Wood, and Naina Shastri), the Managing Director, and staff from several County departments (County Administrator’s Office, Elections Division, Department of Conservation and Department) and the County Office of Education, and created a cultural asset map that shows the locations of arts facilities and activities in the County. In addition, the consulting team planned to conduct extensive public engagement including pop-up events, focus groups, and other equity-centric outreach. However, since the Arts and Culture Commission was not able to meet between October 2021 and January 2022, multiple Commissioners and staff resigned within a short period of time, collaboration with a Subcommittee was not possible, along with other logistical challenges presented by the pandemic (not able to host in person pop-up events, focus groups, community workshops due to concerns regarding COVID), the consulting team was not able to conduct the community outreach and engagement activities as planned.
In January 2022, ABC submitted its Phase One Interim Report for the Prospectus to the County Administrator’s Office. The Interim Report is included as Attachment 3 to this board order. In the Executive Summary of the Interim Report, the consulting team stated that “While the Commission supported the development of this prospectus, Commissioner dissent, along with resignations of Commissioners and staff, have left the consulting team without the guidance it needs to proceed.” The Report also examines the structure of the Commission and provides examples in Appendixes 4 and 5 of how other counties in the Bay Area and other parts of the United States have structured their arts support agencies as public-private partnerships. In the Bay Area, Santa Clara County, Marin County, Santa Cruz County, and Napa County all have nonprofit agencies designated as Arts Councils for their counties.
Based on the research conducted to date, the ABC consulting team suggests the following next steps for the County:
- Determine which County officer will lead the rethinking of the County’s art support.
- Dissolve the Arts and Culture Commission and create an interim strategy to oversee existing programs.
- Re-budget the remaining FY 2021-22 AC5 funds to commission the development of a 10-year Arts and Cultural Plan for Contra Costa County that includes broad public outreach and proposes a different Arts and Culture Commission structure.
There are some important factors to consider when reviewing this Interim Report. First, creating a prospectus or plan requires having an active and engaged client, which was not available to the consultants during the time they developed this report. For example, the public outreach component of the work was dependent upon having a functioning Commission subcommittee, or, preferably, a broader steering or advisory committee that could confer with the consultants and help guide outreach. Apparently, the AC5 culture prospectus ad hoc committee ceased functioning after one meeting due to Commissioner resignations, and there is currently no Commission leadership for the prospectus nor staff to assist in forming a broader subcommittee.
Regarding the section of the Interim Report that analyzed facilities and institutions in each Supervisorial District, this section of the report was a cultural asset survey and not intended to reflect arts activities in each district. In an ideal planning situation, focus groups would be conducted along with public activities in each district. The cultural asset survey would serve as a starting point to identifying additional places where arts activities are occurring and other institutions that were not discovered. Finally, conferring with a broader range of County departments to assess opportunities for integrating the arts into other County activities is necessary and important. However, besides the few county departments mentioned above, no interviews with representatives from other county departments which might benefit from arts and culture programs were made available to the consultants.
When the Interim Report was submitted, the Art Builds Community consultants expressed that developing a cultural plan or even completing work on a prospectus for a plan is both premature and infeasible at this time.
At the February 14, 2022 meeting of AC5 attended by Commissioners Beverly Kumar, Dawn Lopshire, Y’Anad Burrell, Lanita Mims and Alternate Naina Shastri, ABC made a presentation to the Commission regarding the Interim Report and the consulting team’s suggestions summarized above and received input from commissioners. AC5 Commissioners stated that they do not want the Commission to dissolve, rather they would like to discover what the issues have been and figure out how to resolve them. Commissioners stated that the Commission has a long history of supporting arts and culture in the county, and it would be unfortunate to dissolve the work that has been going on for many years after a 90-day observation in the middle of a pandemic. Commissioners do not want the County to dismantle the work they have done and request that the County consider “rebooting” the Commission so that they can carry the important work forward.
Upon further discussion with the Art Builds Community consulting team following the February 14, 2022 Arts and Culture Commission meeting, staff would like to provide the following options for the Internal Operations Committee’s review and consideration:
Option #1:
Dissolve the Arts and Culture Commission and establish a Public-Private Partnership Arts Council for Contra Costa County to oversee the administration of County art funds and programs. This option provides the County the opportunity to leverage existing arts expertise and resources within a nonprofit organization; allows the organization/Council to act as the State-Local Partnership (SLP) for Contra Costa County to compete for future California Arts Council grants; allows the Council to fundraise from other businesses/individuals/foundations; provides the Council with the authority to administer County arts funds and pull together various funding sources to maximize resources and efficiency.
Steps in this transition process would include:
- Issue a Request for Proposals to select a nonprofit organization to be the designated Public-Private Partnership Arts Council for the County and coordinate the provision of arts and cultural programs and services countywide.
- The organization appoints a Manager to develop a plan to launch the Arts Council.
- County establishes a budget to support; funding administered by the Public-Private Partnership Arts Council to support cultural and arts activities across the county.
- A nonprofit organization acting as the Arts Council for the County will include a Board of Directors and supporting staff within their organization to administer arts programs, write grant proposals, regrant arts funds to other community-based organizations and individual artists, work with school districts for arts education, and seek cooperation with municipalities.
- The Arts Council will serve as a connector, investor, advocate and leader for the arts and culture in Contra Costa County and be supported by a number of people and organizations including state and local government, school districts, private and public foundations, businesses and community members.
- Dissolve AC5.
Option #2:
Keep the current Arts and Culture Commission configuration as an advisory body to the Board of Supervisors and move forward with the following actions:
- fill Commission vacancies;
- assign the Commission to a County department other than County Administration;
- recruit and appoint a new contractor as full-time Managing Director;
- update Commission bylaws (Attachment 4) to better define the roles of commissioners, Managing Director, and County staff in the administration of County arts funds and programs;
- train Commissioners and new Managing Director on advisory body functions.
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