This story was published by the Downtown Devil.
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With a new chair and vice chair, Jack Schwimmer and Crys Waddell, respectively, the Phoenix Arts and Culture Commission looks forward to a successful year working closely with the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture to achieve new goals.
“I want to not necessarily become a household name, but I want the arts and culture sector in Phoenix to really see the City Office of Arts and Culture as a resource, not just a grant-maker, not just somebody being called because they want to find an artist, but how can we best promote them? How can we support their professional development?” said Mitch Menchaca, director of the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture.
Menchaca also explained that, since Phoenix is one of the biggest cities in the nation, a major goal of the Commission is to greatly increase funding for the City Office, then to ensure that its money is spent where needed. The goal is to acquire funds equal to $1 for every person residing in Phoenix, or about $1.6 million.
“As the largest city, we’re the lowest grantmaker per capita of the top 10 largest cities,” Menchaca said. “And so I think it would be important for Jack and the Commission to be able to create the public value advocacy to our leadership that has been phenomenal in supporting the arts.”
Commission members can only serve two, three-year terms or six years total. Also, a chair usually serves for two years, but since Schwimmer is in his sixth year on the Commission, he can only serve as chair for one year. Waddell was formerly vice chair and was re-appointed to the position.
“The city fiscal year is July 1 through June 30. For some reason, our commission years are Oct. 1 to Sept. 30,” Menchaca said. “Our hope is that Crys will then be voted as chair next year. We’re hoping to create some sort of succession lineage.”
According to the City of Phoenix website, the Commission currently has 15 members but can have up to 28. Also, the Commission has several subcommittees focused on different things.
“Each commission works a little bit differently, but most have subcommittees. So on ours, we have a public art committee, we have a grants committee, an advocacy committee, again, those main areas,” Menchaca said. “If they want to create subcommittees, that’s up to the chair’s prerogative to do.”
The Advocacy Subcommittee, currently chaired by Jack Schwimmer according to the City of Phoenix website, has been focusing on supporting the State Arts Commission in its efforts to gain legislative reauthorization to continue being a state agency. Menchaca explained that, within the past two years, the state agency has not been getting as much funding as it has in the past, and that advocating for the State’s commission is critical to the success of Phoenix’s commission as well.
“Every 10 years, they [Arizona legislators] have the opportunity to review the work that the agency does, its value to the taxpayers, and the necessity for that agency. And that is the process that is going on right now,” said Steve Wilcox, the communications director for the State of Arizona Arts Commission. “As you might suspect, something like arts and culture in Arizona is not a job that’s ever finished. So we are confident that the Legislature will feel that the Commission should exist beyond this year.”
Wilcox has been with the Arizona State Arts Commission for eight years and he said that the Commission tries to work with all of the cities’ commissions and to distribute funds to them in a fair and balanced manner. This year, the State Commission received $2 million of COVID-19 pandemic relief funds for allocation to the city commissions.
“We, number one, provide grant funding to the to assist them in their work at the city level. And we work on various other programs that are serving mutually beneficial areas of our respective missions,” Wilcox said. “We are deeply dedicated to ensuring that arts funding and arts resources are equitably and fairly distributed throughout the state; that they aren’t simply concentrated in our metro areas and in our major institutions.”
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