An arts-funding overhaul

EDITORIAL

The San Francisco Arts Task Force, created in 2004 by the Board of Supervisors to review how the city funds and promotes the arts, has completed a draft report — and already the sparks are starting to fly.

Much of what the proposal outlines is common sense. Among other things, the task force concluded (big surprise) that too many agencies, with too little coordination, have too much control over arts policy and funding in the city. The report calls for a reorganization of the Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts, and suggests the city create a new Department of Culture to coordinate programs and policies.

The panel, chaired by artist Debra Walker and theater producer Tony Kelly, also calls for better use of the public art fees the Planning Department and Redevelopment Agency generate, and better use of public facilities for arts activities. And it urges the city to improve its efforts at seeking (and helping artists seek) grants and other philanthropic support.

All of those are good ideas.

But to its immense credit, the task force didn't stop there. In a lengthy and critically important section, the report looks at the real problems facing artists and small, nonprofit arts groups in the city — a lack of money and a dearth of affordable housing and work space — and throws out some fairly dramatic suggestions. Among other things, the task force wants the city to stop diverting hotel tax–generated arts funding to pay for other city services; that would cost the General Fund some $24 million a year. But rather than engage in the all-too-common practice of arguing that funding for this particular interest is more important than funding for other things the city does, the task force suggests a long list of ways the city can recoup the revenue.

In other words, the report is as much a financial document as an arts-policy plan — and it has a decidedly progressive outlook. If the city wants to fund the arts properly without taking money from, say, public health or parks and recreation, there are all sorts of options: A development-impact fee on new residential construction. A reconfigured city business tax. A hike in the real estate transfer tax on properties worth more than $2 million. An increase in the marine tax on boats harbored at the SF Marina. An increase in the hotel tax.

The task force also encourages the city to include as part of its eastern neighborhoods rezoning a major commitment to creating affordable housing and low-cost arts space.

There's also a clear undercurrent in the report: The city's most vibrant, community-based arts organizations don't get their fair share of the money, which goes to big, flashy operations like the symphony and opera. The entire plan has the feeling of a manifesto for more democratic oversight of arts money and more grassroots participation in the funding process.

That, of course, flies in the face not only of city policy but also of arts-funding policy in general. Increasingly, a few wealthy patrons decide what gets funded and how, and that money tends to go to established, mainstream programs that benefit the wealthy. There will be some backlash: Just last week, Ken Garcia, the Examiner columnist who tends to support downtown and the big-business line, savaged the new report and complained that there weren't enough old traditionalists on the task force and that "some of the largest institutions that would be impacted by the group's recommendations ... had to watch from the sidelines."

But it's time for a change — a big change — and San Francisco can take the lead in changing the way the arts are funded and arts-policy is determined. The task force report is a good start. *