Just as art is interpreted by the beholder, members of Wilmington City Council this week reached no clear agreement as to whether the arts are truly a component of economic development.
A request from the Arts Council of Wilmington for $25,000 from the city may hinge on a presentation from the agency about the proposed use of the funds, and the city may expect benchmarks or other ways to measure whether the investment is worthwhile.
During a budget-planning work session Monday, Councilwomen Laura Padgett and Margaret Haynes contended a healthy arts presence is a vital part of a community’s economic development–a cause that often receives public funding.
“All artists are entrepreneurs,” Padgett said Monday. “They’re business people. People come here to become artists because we have such a diverse arts community.”
She added her understanding that arts and culture in a particular locale reflect its quality of life and thus help to lure business, jobs and prosperity.
Councilman Neil Anderson didn’t outrightly oppose granting the Arts Council’s funding request in the discussion Monday, but he didn’t agree the arts easily fit the category of economic development, at least not for the purposes of allocating city money.
“I’m self-employed, you know, but I’m not getting funds,” he posed. “I just don’t see [arts] as economic development.” Noting it could simply be an issue of “semantics,” he suggested the Arts Council may be more akin to cultural resources.
Some non-governmental cultural and recreational organizations do receive funding from the city, but generally to lesser individual levels than agencies under the header of “economic and physical development.”
Funding possibilities
Outside agencies under the economic development banner already marked for city funding next fiscal year are the private nonprofit Wilmington Business Development ($84,815), the economic development agency Wilmington Downtown Inc. ($64,252), the Wilmington Regional Film Commission ($115,766), and the UNCW Entrepreneurship Center (which may get at least $50,000).
Agencies marked for city funding under the cultural and recreational category include Cape Fear Youth Soccer ($20,000), the Cucalorus Film Foundation ($10,000), and the Wilmington Black Expo ($1,000).
Far and away the highest-level recipient in local culture is the Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, marked for $127,500 next fiscal year, the same level it has received in each of the past several years.
Film commission equal to Arts Council?
The Wilmington Regional Film Commission’s preliminary funding level–nothing is certain until the budget’s approval sometime in the next two months–would be the highest of local economic development organizations. Its role includes promotion of Wilmington’s standing as a motion picture hotspot and home to the largest sound-stage east of Los Angeles, which all figures into job creation and economic health.
Padgett observed a kinship between the film commission and the Arts Council.
“If we want to keep the Wilmington Film Commission running, why would we want less to keep the Arts Council running and its impact on the community?” Padgett asked Monday. “It is equally an economic development organization to the regional film commission.”
She added: “We will not draw newcomers and new jobs without an active arts council.”
The Arts Council of Wilmington grew from an artist-driven initiative that began in 2008, according to a brief history provided on the council’s website. It came with the help of the N.C. Arts Council–a creature of state government created by Gov. Terry Sanford in 1964–and serves to boost arts and the local economy.
Local Arts Council officials were not immediately available to comment on this story, but executive director Rhonda Bellamy posed an economic development case for her agency during a panel discussion on the local economy in January.
“I think our biggest challenge is overcoming the perception that the arts are somehow frivolous, and add-on, and not really given value for what they bring to the community, in terms of not only jobs but also enhancing the quality of life that we have here,” Bellamy said at the time.
She added that when she entered her role with the arts council last summer, she met with former N.C. Department of Cultural Resources secretary Linda Carlisle, who made the point that “people decide if they can live somewhere before they decide if they can work somewhere.”
Wilmington Downtown Inc. CEO John Hinnant agreed with the notion during a conversation Monday. “I think the arts are a very important part of economic development,” he said, asserting that art-driven areas generally have a clean or charming appearance, which he said was an essential ingredient to lure business and patrons.
Proving worth
During Monday’s budget discussion, Councilman Kevin O’Grady noted the number of social-service agencies–the Brigade Boys & Girls Club, the Cape Fear Literacy Council and the the Cape Fear Area United Way among them–that have to compete for city money and document that they’ve spent allocations beneficially.
Anderson suggested the city ought to understand the return it would or would not get on its investments in other outside agencies like the Arts Council. “How are we going to evaluate the success and performance?” he asked.
O’Grady said he had “no problem” with incentives and grants to helpful agencies, but never without benchmarks to meet.
In the works as of Friday was a meeting between the Arts Council and city officials on what, specifically, the money would benefit and what return the city might expect.
“Let’s see it,” Anderson said Monday.
The new fiscal year will begin July 1. The city’s preliminary budget for it, as presented Monday morning, hovered around $87.26 million in subject-to-change general fund spending.
Councilman Charlie Rivenbark noted that the outside-agency funding requests were, in the grand scheme, a small part of the spending plan “for all this time and emotion.”
The Arts Council also requested $50,000 from New Hanover County’s budget, the county said Friday.
Ben Brown is a news reporter at Port City Daily. Reach him at [email protected] or (910) 772-6335. On Twitter: @benbrownmedia
