Wow, what a day. About a gazillion people turned up to support the Department of Cultural Affairs at today’s meeting. Your letters, Emails, phone calls and presence in the meeting made all the difference today. An extra special thank you to everyone who filled out a speaker card at today’s meeting and told the council how you feel. So many DCA grantees and allied organizations made their voices heard today. Double extra thanks to the folks at Arts for LA, who did an amazing job of herding the art cats into a mighty arts army. Arts for LA’s ability to organize fast and to help focus our message can’t be understated. And of course, a special thanks to all the people at the Department of Cultural Affairs whose daily efforts are so vital to our City.
The end result. The motion to remove the 1% Transient Occupancy Tax funding from the Department was tabled. The decision regarding the suspension of payments to current grantees has been deferred pending the report on the DCA and its grantees role in the economy required as part of Motion 10a, introduced by Jose Huizar, which you can peek at here.
The fight to preserve the DCA surely isn’t over. I think that the TOT tax revenues are safe, but the Department is still going to be faced with the same staff and budget cuts that the rest of the city departments are facing. The grants budget may still be cut. Stay tuned for more news.
Technorati Tags: Arts for LA, City COuncil Jose Huizar, Department of Cultual Affairs, art
