{"article":{"id":104826,"heading":"Mass meeting in NoHo to stop arts cuts","author":"NoHo Artist","created":"2004-03-12 20:16:06","modified":"2004-03-12 23:26:50","last_modified":"Sat, 13 Mar 2004 06:26:50","article":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>MARCH 15th NOHO ARTS DISTRICT  <br>  <br> MEETING TO SAVE CAD <br><br> Monday, March 15th., 5 - 6 p.m.  <br>  <br> The Lankershim Art Gallery 5108 Lankershim Blvd. NoHo Arts District (818-760-1278) <br>  <br> RESERVATIONS: Call: 818-506-3132 or email: <a href=\"mailto:lisa@nohoartsdistrict.com\">lisa@nohoartsdistrict.com<\/a> <br><br> NoHo Arts District.com also maintains an excellent page on their website that discribes the economic advantages of supporting the arts...\"the arts are not a luxury, but an economic engine to  <br>  <br> revitalize our neighborhoods.\"  <br><br> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nohoartsdistrict.com\/new\/arts_advoc_call_2_action.htm\">http:\/\/www.nohoartsdistrict.com\/new\/arts_advoc_call_2_action.htm<\/a> <br><br> Background: <br>  <br> The L.A. City Mayor's office intends to dismantle and eliminate the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department (CAD).  If Mayor Hahn's gray-suited Philistines have their way $3,500,000 in grants to 250 arts organizations and individuals will disappear!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"The online magazine for the San Fernando Valley's NoHo Arts District, www.nohoartsdistrict.com , is helping to organize an emergency community meeting to stop the attacks on CAD. Join representatives from the Cultural Affairs Department, the NoHo Theatre & Arts Business Collaborative, Valley Theatre League and other arts organizations to save the arts in Los Angeles.","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/03\/104826.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":104851,"heading":"NO CUTS IN ARTS FUNDING!","article":"Excerpts from a March 9th. Los Angeles Times article on the elimination of the Cultural Affairs Department.\r\nMarch 9, 2004 Tuesday - Home Edition\r\n\r\nThe Cultural Affairs Department grants about $3 million each year to the arts, offers neighborhood classes for adults and children, oversees a city-owned gallery and theaters, and is in charge of the landmark Watts Towers.\r\n\r\nIn the Cultural Affairs Department, which has an annual budget of about $12 million, general manager Margie J. Reese said, &quot;What a shame it would be for this city to ... send a message to the world that the arts in Los Angeles have had to take this kind of blow.&quot;\r\n\r\nReese said that mayoral staffers met with her Thursday at City Hall and outlined a rough plan in which some of the work now done by Cultural Affairs would be parceled to two other departments: Recreation and Parks, and Planning. She said it appears that &quot;the lion's share&quot; of the grants program would be lost. Under that program, the city gives cash awards to nearly 200 organizations and individual artists who prevail in a competitive peer-review process.\r\n\r\nBeneficiaries include prominent institutions such as Los Angeles Opera, Center Theatre Group and the Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as grass-roots programs aimed at bringing arts programming to poor neighborhoods, such as the skid row theater troupe the Los Angeles Poverty Department.\r\n\r\nRobert Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group that represents local government arts agencies nationwide, predicted that if L.A. eliminated its arts agency, &quot;it would be not only a major embarrassment but a very bad policy decision, which will be seen as such by cities all across the country. Besides the money,&quot; a city agency that makes arts grants &quot;is a symbol that a great city thinks enough of itself to invest in beauty and learning and culture.&quot;\r\n\r\nGovernment arts grants programs are especially important, Lynch said, because they serve as a &quot;seal of approval&quot; that can help groups attract much bigger amounts from corporations, private foundations and individual donors.\r\n\r\nMayor Tom Bradley and the City Council created the Cultural Affairs Department in 1980 to establish a central agency to help fund the arts and strengthen L.A.'s nonprofit cultural institutions. Eliminating the department, which currently is allotted 93.5 staff positions, would deprive the city of a &quot;central hub&quot; for culture, said Leslie Thomas, its assistant general manager. &quot;You lose a point of reference. You lose that place where you can call and find out what is happening with regards to art and culture in our city.&quot;\r\n\r\nArts advocates already are smarting from a drubbing they took in Sacramento last summer and vow increased activism to prevent further losses. Funding for the California Arts Council plummeted from $21.1 \r\nmillion to $3.1 million, dropping California to last place nationally in per capita state funding of the arts and virtually doing away with arts grants on the state level.","author":"more art less war","parent_id":104826,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-03-12 23:26:50","modified":"2004-03-12 23:26:50","fileurl":""}]}