Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission (LCAC)
January 14, 2012 minutes
MEMBERS PRESENT: Christie Dobson, Mandy Enfield, Sarah Harris, Eric Kirkendal, Jane Pennington, Kathy Porsch, Mari Russell, Darin White
STAFF PRESENT: Diane Stoddard
GUESTS PRESENT: Susan Tate and John Hachmeister
ACTION POINTS: 1) Eric will draft and circulate a cover letter through Diane for signature by all of the LCAC members to accompany the Lawrence Final Fridays Impact Analysis and Economic Development Recommendations. 2) Jane will update Arts Director talking points and circulate them through Diane to the LCAC members for comment and addition. 3) LCAC members will email Diane with suggestions for changes in the position description, and she will finalize it for circulation along with the talking points and the Lawrence Final Fridays Impact Analysis and Economic Development Recommendations to the arts and culture organizations identified as partners in this request between now and the February 8th meeting of the LCAC. The final letter to the City Commission and Mayor requesting the study session will be signed by all members at the February meeting and then Diane will send it along with the report and the support letters from other arts and culture organizations in Lawrence to the Mayor and City Commission. 5) LCAC members will discuss this initiative with people they know in the arts and culture community and also with business leaders, members of the Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau to help explain the position request and the benefits such a position could bring both directly to arts and culture, and also economically. 6) LCAC members will contact people they believe would represent the arts and culture on the LCAC and urge them to volunteer for service on the commission, providing them with the link to the volunteer form (http://www.ci.lawrence.ks.us/advisory_board_volunteer ). 7) Diane will bring any volunteer applications to the February meeting so the LCAC can recommend appointments to the Mayor and potentially thus expedite filling the four open positions.
Commissioner Porsch called the meeting to order.
November Minutes were approved.
The Nominating Committee offered its slate of officers for 2012 as follows: Kathy Porsch, chair, Jane Pennington, vice chair, and Mandy Enfield, secretary. Discussion and approval was postponed until after consideration of agenda item four, Lawrence Arts Coordinator.
Members discussed the role of the LCAC and how we should approach future projects and keep with our purpose and mission. It was agreed that the LCAC is an advisory board and we are committed to maintaining and improving Lawrence as the “City of the Arts”. Our current pursuit a city funded arts coordinator will achieve this goal.
The group discussed an action plan for creating the position. It was agreed that we have a very good starting point with the stART Report and LCAC members will use this data to make the case for the position to the City Commission. We will seek written support from other arts agencies and economic development groups in town.
Kathy led a discussion about the duties of a City Arts Coordinator. This person may write grants to sustain the position and acquire support for projects. Diane spoke of a current city department that keeps really great records to show the impact and positive outcomes of the position. The Arts Coordinator should also do this. Eric added that this person would serve a management function, not a coordinating function.
Eric presented the Final Fridays report, which will be linked from the LCAC. The project was to evaluate the impact of Final Fridays (FF) and make recommendations to promote Lawrence as the City of the Arts. In summary, Eric reported that FF has had a very positive financial impact, extrapolating form the data gathered during the two-month period of the study. It was found that $84,000 was generated that could be attributed as being directly related to FF. Drawing on the example of Ft. Collins, one of the peer cities used for comparison, arts, culture, and creativity are very important to economic development, he said. But, Lawrence has an institutional disadvantage in that we don’t have even one position devoted to management of the arts. Ft. Collins has an entire division and a cultural plan, which is why we lost (the National Endowment for the Arts Community Arts Grant) to them last year. Bloomington is also a great comparison city. Their arts person is an economic development person. In sum, a key recommendation of the report is that Lawrence create an arts position and, under that person’s leadership, develop a long-term strategy and plan for cultural development. For example, we need to improve FF marketing and possibly expand it to a weekend event, look at what other similar cities have done successfully, expand FF, and develop national and international events. He said Lawrence already has many great events going on here, and they could be better promoted, and made national events, for example the Lawrence Art Walk and the Busker Festival. Eric added that we need to develop a Lawrence brand to sell the city.
Sarah mentioned that we have talked about collaboration so much that it would be great to have someone to pull together a list of all the arts organizations in town, and develop a master calendar of events. Kathy pointed out that the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has an excellent calendar and that a collaboration with CVB might offer an opportunity to build on that success. Darin added that Austin has a huge budget for bringing in film companies to film in the city and pointed out that Lawrence has had films shot on location here and in the surrounding area.
Jane said the Lawrence Convention and Visitor’s Bureau is working on branding the city and that the LCAC should provide input into that process. She added that there needs to be a database of Lawrence’s arts and culture related resource tools and assets to avoid duplication of resources.
Darin asked about tax incentives. Eric said a list of best practices from other cities is included in the report. Kathy asked how we might use this report to approach the city and county to ask for funding for an arts director position. Eric said his team could put together a presentation. Jane asked how we get on the agenda for the city and county. Would they have a joint session? Diane said they rarely have joint meetings and suggested the LCAC request a study session with the city commission for the purpose of going over the report outside of their regular meeting schedule. Eric said it might be a good idea to circulate the report to other community groups and arts organizations to rally support for the arts director position before we bring it to the city. This might delay our presentation to the city, but business owners will likely support the idea because what’s good for art is good for business.
Sarah suggested that we send a hard copy of this report to community leaders with a letter from the LCAC with signatures from all of the members.
Kathy asked for a show of hands in support of the arts coordinator position. Mari abstained, saying that she would like to see community and financial support. Kathy clarified that the intent was to ask if the commissioners are in favor of seeking support from the community to go forward with a request for a full time arts director position, and Mari agreed that she supported that.
Kathy said to look at the draft position description and decide if it is what we want to use as a suggested set of duties and expectations, and that we need to update the talking points established a year ago. Jane said she will update the talking points. We have the tools we need to go out in the community to get support and get on the city’s calendar in March. The next step is for LCAC members to email Diane with suggestions for changes in the position description, and she will finalize it for circulation along with the talking points between now and the February 8th meeting of the LCAC. The final letter will be signed by all members at the February meeting and then sent along with the report to the commission, along with support letters sent directly from other arts and culture organizations in Lawrence.
Diane said Late March early April is a good time to request a meeting with the City Commission. Susan asked if there are other city positions that are expected to fund themselves. Diane said in a way the sustainability position does; it pays off in a tangible way. Susan suggested that we don’t want this person to have to fundraise all the time to the detriment of the purpose for the position (to promote and sustain the creative economy in Lawrence). It is not a fundraising position, it is a management position, she said. We know from our research that the investment in it will pay off many times over. Darin agreed and said we are filling the cultural potholes, and that is as critical as filling potholes in the streets.
With this plan in place, Kathy asked if Jane was still willing to serve as vice chair, given that the chair will be absent for a period of time following back surgery and the vice chair will have to carry this effort forward in her absence. Kathy suggested that a co-vice chair be appointed to help spread the effort, and further suggested that Eric Kirkendall, as one of the authors of the new economic impact statement serve that role. Eric said he would be willing to do so and Jane agreed that, working together, they could spearhead this effort.
Christie then made a motion to approve the slate of officers as presented and Jane seconded the motion. After discussion, the commissioners voted to accept this slate of officers as presented. Because, the commission currently has four openings, it was decided to wait until volunteers have been appointed by the mayor to fill the positions before establishing the other 2012 LCAC committees. In the interim, the committees will continue to be operated by the remaining 2011 members as follows:
Executive Committee
Kathy Porsch, Chair (kporsch@sunflower.com)
Jane Pennington, Co-Vice Chair (jfpennington@gmail.com)
Eric Kirkendall, Co-vice Chair (kirkendall1@gmail.com)
Mandy Enfield, Secretary
Nominating Committee
Jane Pennington
Christie Dobson (christiedobson@hotmail.com)
Phoenix Award Committee
Mandy Enfield, Chair (mandy@van-go.org)
Outdoor Sculpture Committee
Jane Pennington, Chair (jfpennington@gmail.com)
Darin White (darin.white@gmail.com)
Community Arts Grants Committee
Kathy Porsch, Chair
Arts Sustainability Task Force
Christie Dobson, Chair
Eric Kirkendall (kirkendall1@gmail.com)
Jane Pennington
Kathy Porsch
Darin White
Library Expansion Percent for Art
Jane Pennington
Mari Russell (mrussell@haskell.edu)
Darin White
Arts Roundtable Liaison – Mandy Enfield
Lawrence Arts Center Liaison – Kathy Porsch
Kathy suggested that since we are 4 members short we postpone work on retreat items five and six until we have a full commission, and in the meantime focus in on the current goal, to obtain the position of arts director on the City staff.
Eric reminded us that the charter lays this out as a leadership organization. We need to embrace our role as a leadership and advisory council.
Mandy suggested a press release for the Lawrence Final Fridays Impact Analysis and Economic Development Recommendations findings. Eric said he has been contacted by the Lawrence Journal World and will pursue coverage of the report.
Jane presented her sculpture puzzle, which she created for the Family Arts Festival. She said, if the LCAC needs to do more awareness building, it is a good tool.
Adjourned at noon.