AT A COMMUNITY meeting May 6, Mayor Gavin Newsom made several promises to an audience of about 350 arts industry people. The ideas weren't entirely unexpected: both Newsom and Sup. Matt Gonzalez had campaigned on platforms that included revitalizing the city's arts industry. Any major changes that come out of the Mayor's Office will most likely form the basis of the city's arts policy for the next couple of decades, so it's important that any process be thorough, inclusive, and diligent.

Newsom's priorities were:

1. sustaining and stabilizing community-based arts organizations serving, celebrating, and supporting San Francisco's many diverse neighborhoods;

2. identifying and accessing federal and other funds to increase the city's revenue and its ability to support, sustain, and leverage its vibrant arts community;

3. developing new strategies to increase cultural tourism through the arts;

4. expanding housing resources for low- and moderate-income levels and maintaining affordable studio spaces;

5. building on our strong creative workforce and existing arts economy to increase jobs and economic opportunities.

However, in the midst of this, Newsom's proposed merging of Grants for the Arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission as part of his cost-cutting budget plan has unwittingly provided an opportunity for underlying tensions to rise to the surface. That's unfortunate, because it's happening at a time when there's a good deal of political will to push forward an arts agenda in San Francisco, and the issue threatens to become a lightening rod that will detract from that agenda.

There are those who think GFTA is a national model of nonpolitical sustainability that shouldn't be tampered with for fear of destroying it. There are people who think the agency is unfair, and a few who are adamant that GFTA has no equitable process, public oversight, or accountability. The reason feelings run so high is partly that, in its efforts to remain nonpolitical, GFTA hasn't implemented a mechanism that encourages a broad range of opinions on how it does business.

So the merging of the arts agencies isn't really the issue. It's just that Newsom's cost-cutting efforts are forcing that debate to take place, and it may not be the most appropriate forum for it to happen in. For better or for worse, the plan would make GFTA answerable to an appointed commission that would be the instrument to scrutinize GFTA's grant-making decisions.

Unfortunately the GFTA debate threatens to divert the arts community's focus from the bigger prize. There needs to be a community task force to work with the mayor and the Board of Supervisors to research and make recommendations on at least some of the items listed above. By its very nature this process should require a full review of the city's current arts funding structures and policies, including GFTA. Ensuring the integrity of this funding program can be discussed under the broader framework of building a strong arts economy and sustaining the city's multicultural arts ecosystem as outlined by the mayor. This process would allow us to see how GFTA best fits in an overall structure before making decisions as to how it should be altered, as opposed to simply responding to Newsom's proposed merger by arguing over whether we should preserve the status quo.

The arts community is currently in the unusual position of having the attention of our highest-ranking local official. We can either take a broader view and engage his administration in the policies he has proposed and push for the betterment of our industry, or we can get into a fight over GFTA and make him and others at City Hall think the arts community is too volatile and polarized to risk political capital on. I advocate for the former.

Andrew Wood is the director of the San Francisco International Arts Festival and has worked as an arts administrator in San Francisco for 14 years.