San Diego County steps in with arts grants amid federal and city cuts

San Diego County supervisors plan to launch a new arts and culture initiative, as the city and federal government are slashing arts funding.

On Wednesday, County Board of Supervisors Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and Vice Chair Monica Montgomery Steppe announced their proposal to spend up to $2.75 million dollars for arts programs the first year, with ongoing spending of $2.25 million for several arts programs to serve the 3.3 million people in San Diego County’s cities and unincorporated areas.

“We believe this will be transformative,” Lawson-Remer said. “It is the first time the county is stepping forward to provide public investment in arts and culture for the entire county.”

The supervisors unveiled their plan at the San Diego County Administration Center at Waterfront Park, after children from the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra played violin pieces and break dancers performed gymnastic moves.

The county arts program would include a $1 million grant program aimed at individual artists in areas with limited cultural resources. It would allocate $500,000 each to improve access to creative spaces and support an existing Black Arts and Culture District, located in nine blocks within the San Diego community of Encanto.

The plan would also set aside $250,000 each for binational arts and cultural collaboration in the San Diego-Baja region, and an artist-in-residence program to place local artists within county departments, where they would help devise creative solutions to public challenges.

“This means that communities where San Diegans have been underserved in, marginalized in the arts for too long, will have support and resources,” Lawson-Remer said, speaking at a podium where someone had clipped a plush Mozart figure, a gift from the youth orchestra. “We’re expanding opportunities for artists, increasing public access and cultural experiences and strengthening connections across our entire diverse, incredible region.”

The five-member board of supervisors will vote on the proposal on Tuesday, May 5.

The proposed program has been in the works for a year, the supervisors said, but its rollout coincides with San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s plan to eliminate an $11.8 million art grant program and close a $146 million hole in the city budget. Arts and culture advocates have opposed the proposed cuts, which would slash city arts funding by 85% and also reduce spending on libraries and recreation centers.

The county program isn’t a response to city budget cuts, Montgomery Steppe said, but she acknowledged the writing was on the wall as government agencies retreated from arts commitments.

The federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration last year revoked money that was previously awarded to local nonprofits through the National Endowment for the Arts. Artists are also “pushed to the margins” by rising costs, limited access to capital, unstable income and lack of affordable work and living spaces, the supervisors stated in the staff report for the proposal.

“San Diego County’s arts and culture ecosystem is at a critical moment,” Montgomery Steppe said. “We’ve all witnessed the resilience of our artists and cultural workers over the past years, as their livelihood has been challenged through pandemic shutdowns and shifting public priorities. But today, we are also facing a new challenge of society stepping back from its long-standing commitment to the arts.”

Jared Osoria, a principal dancer with San Diego Ballet, said his organization lost $10,000 last year that the National Endowment for the Arts appropriated and then revoked. The county arts program could help the ballet company buy new audio visual equipment for rehearsal studios, cover other supplies and offer free ballet classes to students in San Ysidro and City Heights.

“This puts shoes on our dancers feet,” Osoria said. “It gives us a better budget for props for our main stage productions. It ensures that our Nutcracker continues year after year.”

Alex Villafuerte, executive director of the Pacific Arts Movement, which produces the San Diego Asian Film Festival, said the federal endowment awarded his organization $25,000 last year, but then clawed back the money.

“Last year was the first year that it had been rescinded with no explanation and no chance for us to take a rebuttal or have them reconsider, and we assume it’s largely because of the executive orders around diversity,” he said.

Then film festival sponsors reversed their grants, pulling another $50,000 after telling organizers that they were concerned the donations would run afoul of federal rules restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Because of that, the organization brought in fewer filmmakers for its main festival and scaled back its spring showcase from seven to three days, Villafuerte said.

Ramel Wallace, founder and CEO of the organization the Holyfield, which supports storytelling, music and education, said the county’s contribution is a good start. But he said artist communities have to become more self-sufficient through grassroots financial structures such as rotating savings and credit associations, and savings circles that share capital among the members.

“Right now, people are going to have to create solidarity economics, microeconomics in our individual communities, because we can’t always look to the powers that be,” he said.

Arts advocates dismissed the idea that art is a luxury, arguing that investing in the arts boosts community well-being, supports tourism and spurs economic development.

“The arts are not a luxury; they are a public good,” said Gaidi Finnie, executive director of the San Diego African-American Museum of Fine Art. “They’re jobs, they’re small businesses, they’re education, they’re mental health.”

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This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.