What’s at stake?
While the Parks, Recreation, and Arts Commission meets for a “reconsideration” of Measure P arts funding recommendations, the $8.6 million already promised to multiple nonprofits and artists across town hangs in the balance.
The Fresno Parks, Recreation, and Arts Commission could settle a debate Monday night about whether to move forward with Measure P arts grant recommendations – and answer an $8.6 million question that’s left some local nonprofits in the lurch.
The nine-member commission is in charge of approving funding recommendations for the first year’s worth of grants generated by the Measure P three-eighths cent sales tax. They originally voted to approve recommendations roughly two months ago at a May 20 meeting.
Grantees were told the grant period would begin July 1.
But in a June 17 meeting, the Fresno’s Parks, After School, Recreation, and Community Services Department Director Aaron Aguirre announced there had been a “procedural issue,” necessitating a “curing process.”
Amid the unexpected delays, some commissioners have welcomed the slowdown, raising equity concerns. The commission narrowly passed a motion earlier this month to delay their decision on the grant awards to Monday’s meeting, citing concerns with an inequitable distribution of the proposed grant awards across Fresno City Council districts.
Now, it’s unclear what the commission’s next move will be.
The agenda for Monday’s meeting says the commission will hold a hearing for the “reconsideration” of recommended grantees and award amounts.
As the finish line for grant recipients keeps moving, the delay has left some organizations – who were counting on the funding ever since being notified of their awards in May – in a vulnerable position.
How did we get here?
At the June 17 commission meeting, PARCS Director Aguirre made a statement from the dais to explain a delay to the process of awarding grants and reviewing appeals, adding he’d defer to the City Attorney’s Office to “fill in any blanks” he left.
“We just want to make the PRAC aware that there was a procedural issue related to the expanded arts and culture grant program,” he said, “and (the legal department) has requested us to work on the curing process prior to the hearing of the appeals. So that’s the reason for today’s delay.”
That felt like a curveball to some commissioners.
“It was confusing,” said commissioner Laura Ward in an interview with Fresnoland on July 12. She had gone into the meeting expecting to hear appeals to the May 20 recommendations during a 10-day appeal period.
It remains unclear what exactly that procedural issue was. The City Attorney’s Office didn’t respond to Fresnoland’s requests for clarification.
At the next commission meeting July 1, members were presented with additional information from the Fresno Arts Council, the local arts agency tasked with administering the Measure P arts funding. That included a breakdown of which council districts each grant applicant was located in.
That report demonstrated that the smallest share of the funding was going to District 5 in southeast Fresno at just over $260,000, or about 3% of the total pot.
On the other hand, District 3, which includes much of southwest Fresno, downtown Fresno, and the Tower District, received the largest piece of the pie at over $3.8 million, or roughly 45%.
Jose Leon-Barraza was one of multiple commissioners who questioned the fairness of that distribution of funds from the dais July 1.
“In my opinion, that’s not equity,” Leon-Barraza said in an interview with Fresnoland on July 12.
“What I’m concerned about is communities of color, low-income communities, and I’m specifically talking about southeast, southwest and south central Fresno,” he added, noting that he’s a resident of southeast Fresno. “I mean, that’s where we have a lot of poverty. And that’s where we need to invest.”
Christina Soto, another member of the commission, also said she was “disappointed” in the funding patterns.
“It would only be fair to reopen this process,” she added, “and, I don’t know, to figure out a way to make good on our commitment but also open this up.”
Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council, said during the meeting that some of these patterns in the funding weren’t surprising.
The council only received four total applications from District 5, she said.
District 3 encompasses not only downtown Fresno, where several organizations are headquartered, but also some of the city’s arts hubs like the Cultural Arts District.
“Many of the organizations that are within that district serve the entire city,” Gonzáles Chávez said of District 3.
Other commissioners, while acknowledging there’s work to do in the next round of the annual grants to improve outreach to south Fresno communities, opposed delaying the grants that many local organizations had been counting on since May.
“Delaying this process is a real hardship for many organizations,” commission vice chair John Dohlin said, “just as much as it is a hardship for those who did not have their applications passed. I mean, it’s very clear in any process like this … there is always going to be disappointment.
“We can’t be asking here, in terms of the equity question or anything else, that the perfect be the enemy of the good in this process,” he added, “when there’s so much ahead of us to learn from in this iteration and knowing that every year will get better and better.”
Commissioners ultimately voted 4-3 to delay approval of the original recommendations and revisit it during Monday’s meeting.
Leon-Barraza was joined by commission chair Kimberly McCoy as well as Christina Soto and new commissioner Rose Caglia in their vote to delay the decision.
Commissioners Scott Miller, Dohlin, and Ward voted against the motion.
Promises made
The funding delay caught other commissioners and grantees alike off guard.
Some affected organizations spoke out at the July 1 meeting.
Alicia Rodriguez, co-founder of Labyrinth Art Collective in the Tower District, told the commission the delay “is a big blow” to smaller organizations like Labyrinth that received notice of the Arts Council’s intent to award them a grant months ago.
“I’m having trouble with the equity argument as a whole,” she added. “I’m sure there are aspects that can be pointed out for certain parties, and I think there’s refining that can be done over the years … but I don’t think this is enough to give punitive action to everybody who’s already received the intent to award.”
“We do serve marginalized groups. The grant asks diversity and equity questions – that was built into the grant questions,” she added. “We supplied substantiation for that.”
Ward said some organizations told her they have had to cancel events and have struggled with payroll amid the funding delays.
She said it’s “possible” the decision will be further delayed after Monday’s meeting, while Leon-Barraza declined to say whether he’d support delaying the decision.
“I hope that reason will prevail and that there will be … some form of remedial procedure that brings equity into the process,” he said. “How that happens, I don’t know.”
“I’m mindful of the importance of funding the agencies that, in good faith, have applied for these grants,” he added. “We’re not intending to delay the process just because we love to delay things. No, we want equity.”
How to attend Monday’s meeting
The Parks, Recreation, and Arts Commission meeting will take place Monday, July 15, at 5:30 p.m. at on the second floor of Fresno City Hall (2600 Fresno Street) inside council chambers.
You can also attend remotely via the following Zoom link: https://www.fresno.gov/prac-meeting.
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