Report from the California Art Council 12/8/22 Public Meeting
The December 8, 2022 California Arts Council meeting opened with a report from the Council Chair Lilia Gonzáles-Chávez. Chair Lilia Gonzáles-Chávez thanked the board and staff for their support during her tenure, and noted the many challenges encountered during the pandemic and the many accomplishments of the CAC despite these challenges.
The Executive Director’s report by Jonathan Moscone, followed. He began by thanking the staff and council for their support during his bereavement leave. He noted that the Council plans 23 in-person meetings throughout the coming year to get in touch with the field. During today's meeting issues that are raised and need a greater examination will be recorded and addressed during an upcoming retreat. In an effort to open up the decision making process, a public comment section will be added prior to each voting item. The Council is also opening up the process around the Arts and Corrections program. Executive Director Moscone also noted that the council is dedicated to improving processes to get all grant monies out the door in a more time effective manner.
California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick was introduced and the council members then recited one of his poems. Mr. Herrick then shared how excited he is to begin his tenure as Poet Laureate and how grateful he is for the honor.
The minutes of the October 27 meeting were then reviewed and approved.
A period of public comment followed, after a brief explanation of the new public comments policy. There will now be an open public comment section followed by public comment sections related to each voting item on the agenda.
The next agenda item was a voting item: Recommended Grant Program Guidelines. The Programs Policy Committee presented recommendations on the following three program
guidelines for Council Vote:
1. Cultural Pathways-Technical Assistance (CP-TA)
2. Individual Artists Fellowship, Region 4 (IAF)
3. Creative Youth Development (CYD)
These are existing programs, the guidelines are being voted on so that allocated funds can be utilized.
Alex Israel presented:
The first two programs were already approved but did not receive sufficient applicants. Council voted in earlier meetings not to fund ineligible applicants but to clarify the guidelines, and reopen the program for applications.
The third program is being reopened to solicit more applicants as additional funds have been allocated. At the October meeting the council voted to reopen the process to allocate the funds by June 2023.
The guidelines have undergone very minor changes, which are outlined in the Memo.
There will be robust efforts to better promote and publicize the reopen program
The Policy Committee recommended that the Council vote to approve the Attached Guidelines for the three programs.
There was a period of public comment on this item followed by council discussion
During the discussion, Ellen Gavin, proposed that a system be considered where instead of doing an RFP for one consultant that could help all grantees that instead the funds be allocated through an application process in small amounts to each of the 78 Cultural Pathways recipients to use for individual consultancy on their identified needs.
Staff clarified that it would be possible to augment the existing recipients in this way, and that it was important to make this decision quickly because the projects are already underway and the technical assistance is needed. It was also clarified that it would not be an RFP it would be a grant process. So it would be another set of guidelines to be approved. If the decision is made to do an additional allocation to the existing recipients that can be done, but is ultimately more work than simply identifying one new consultant to provide support to all of the recipients.
Alex wondered if the Cultural Pathways recipients would have the resources to identify providers of the technical assistance they need.
The motion was changed to only move forward at this point with a vote on the Individual Artist Fellowship/Region 4 and Creative Youth Development.
There was an extended conversation about the pros and cons of the proposal to change the approach to the Technical Assistance funding
There was a vote on the motion to change the approach for the Technical Assistance funding and the motion failed.
There was a motion that the recommendations of the committee be accepted, and the motion passed
The next agenda item was a Staff Presentation on the California Creative Corps and Cultural Districts Updates, presented by Kristin Margolis, The Director of Program Services for the State Mandated programs and Legislative Affairs. In the presentation the following points were made:
In 2015 assembly Bill 189 (Assembly member Richard, Bloom) established the authority for the Arts Council to Designate Cultural Districts, which produced the designation of the 14 original cultural districts.
The 2022-23 Budget included a $30 million allocation to expand the cultural districts program
CAC has temporarily designated staff for this program, and they are currently meeting with each of the districts
Have heard repeatedly about the need for unrestricted funds, dedicated staff and technical assistance, as well as assistance with developing relationship with different government agencies
During the first 5 years the districts have formed strong connections with their communities and proved their value
Examples were shared from some of the existing cultural district programs
The 202-221 Budget included a $60m general fund allocation for the California Arts Council to implement the California Creative Corps pilot program
The intention of this pilot program is to provide as broad geographic reach as possible and to serve all 58 counties while prioritizing communities that demonstrate the Highest level of need as indicated by the healthy places index
There are 14 administrative organizations selected to administer these funds, 9 regional organizations and 3 statewide organizations
The next agenda item was:
Creative Corps AO Presentation: City of Sacramento, Office of Arts and Culture
by Melissa Cirone with the following highlights:
The creative Corps program centers the individual artists as the driver of change and the creator of more effective communications around California's most challenging issues and this program has mandated specifically that at least 60% of the funds go directly to artists
It allows art works to regionally tackle issues and share resources
Program will be multi-pronged and include up to 5 large grants funded to organizations, or art-focus units of government that are either already engaged in cross-sector work or have developed cross-sector relationships, and are positioned to tackle one of these priority issues
At least one of these large grants will specifically be focused on either a rural community or one that's in the lowest quartile of the Healthy Places index
There will be about 20 grants that are smaller in size that can be more responsive to emerging partnerships, and can be led by artist co-ops, nonviolence, or Fiscally sponsored groups
A cohort of 5 artists will be awarded full-time temporary positions for up to one year, in a Sacramento city department or division
The next agenda item was a voting Item: Recommended Grant Programs for 2023 Programs Policy Committee presented their recommendations for grant programming for fiscal year 2023.
The committee recommends opening the following 2023 programs with local assistance funds.
State-Local Partners (SLP)
State-Local Partners – Mentorship (SLP-M)
Statewide and Regional Networks (SRN)
Folk and Traditional Arts – Administering Organization (FTA)
Arts and Cultural Organization General Operating Support (GEN)
Cultural Pathways (CP)
Impact Projects (PRJ)
it was noted that it is critical that these recommendations be voted on today to maintain the grant making timeline, and make sure that the money gets into the hands of those who need it most in a timely fashion as promised
Complete details on the timeline and overall considerations the committee went through are included in the memo submitted by the committee in the meeting booklet
Some highlights from the presentation include the listed considerations:
Balance General Operating and Project Support
Consolidating Grant Programs
Priority Communities
- Rather than creating small pockets of funding to serve niche communities, instead that these communities be prioritized through the Impact Projects banner and these communities will now have access the larger grant funding pools rather than the smaller ones that they had previously had access to
Partnership and Federally Funded Programming
To continue to maintain strong ties to our partner organizations to continue to work with the NEA which is reflected in our Folk and Traditional Arts Program
Budget projection
For this year. CAC won't know how much they have to spend on grant funding until June 15th. Given that constraint, a vote to fund the list of 7 recommended programs, means regardless of budgetary unknowns, CAC will be able to fund the programs which CAC might not be otherwise be able to do with many more Programs
These 7 are our most important programs based on research, history, and the Robust Council conversation as well as through the Decision Support Tool which is also included in the Council Book
New and other Grant Programs
Arts and Accessibility and Arts Administers Pipeline, both of these programs didn't have enough eligible applications, we were unable to find an AO to support them. The committee needs more time to consider the guidelines for these programs. The funds for these programs are there it's just a matter of revising the Guidelines
There was a discussion from the last meeting about opening touring and presenting program, the Committee feels they need time to really consider this idea and whether the Council and Community desire this type of program to be reinitiated
A spreadsheet with additional details is included in the Committee Memo
There was a period of public comment on this voting item.
It was noted that today’s vote is about which programs should happen, then at a later date will be the discussion about the guidelines and funding for the programs. It was noted that there needs to be discussion about returning funding within general support for groups with budgets over $250,000.
There was also a discussion about reinstating the Touring and Presenting grant program.
The recommendations of the committee were accepted.
The next agenda item was a voting Item: Election of the Chair and Vice Chair and Council Seats. The Governance committee put forward Consuelo Montoya as Chair and Vicki Estrada as Vice Chair of the CAC. The motion passed.
Reports from the various committees followed.
Equity Committee – presented by Consuelo Montoya and Gerald Clarke
- The committee presented a memo included in the meeting book.
The committee recommends the CAC invest in a SLP convening. This could include one-time funding for SLPs to participate in the co-creation of the convening and to attend. The purpose of the convening would be two-fold: 1) to provide time and space for topics the SLPs have identified as needs; and 2) advance the equity impact work initiated through the Equity Impact Assessment process.
The convening would be in Fall 2024
Strategic Framework – Roxanne Messina Captor and Phil Mercado
An update memo from the committees was included in the meeting book
The Strategic Framework Document created has been put on hold due to COVID
The committee is looking at the CAC’s aspirations
Currently 5 broad areas being looked at: grantmaking, programs, partnerships, policy and public communications
Then roughly 28 sub-topics, which the committee is looking at to see what is still accurate
Starting to look at the first area of grantmaking, looking at timeline and the need for greater accountability.
Looking at geographic equity and how to best serve all areas of the state
Governance Committee – Vicki Estrada and Ellen Gavin
The issue of openness and participation is the main issue being looked at
Looking at the issue of opening up the committees beyond two people
Going through the decision tool
Recommend having a board retreat in 2023
The next agenda item is a voting item: Reinstatement of Grantee Award
This was introduced as a clean up item. Due to a problem with the state system there was a problem with how a program was reviewed. Due to the issue the council did not have accurate information about the program and it impacted how the program was reviewed
There is more information included in the meeting book under tab F
This was a technical error in that information was not available that should have been available
The matter is to approve allocations for an awardee who was deemed ineligible to receive awards. There was information coming from government agencies that an organization was not in good standing with the Secretary of State and the Franchise tax board so the applicant was removed from consideration for grants that they had already been evaluated for. The CAC staff did extensive research and discovered that the organization was actually in good standing and the error was on the part of the state organizations
The move here is to reinstate those grants that were terminated due to this error
The staff is also looking into ways to prevent this from happening again in the future
The council discussion was followed by Public Comment
The motion passed.
The next agenda item was a discussion of a 2023 Board retreat to take place in first quarter of 2023.
This will include orientation for Board members
There was a brainstorming session about the Board Retreat and what would define a successful retreat
The final agenda items were an In Memoriam session where council members remembered the careers and contributions of recently departed California artists.
Report prepared by Teri Ball.