Fresno City Hall photo by Breanna Hardy

The City of Fresno has released a draft cultural arts plan on how to spend an estimated $38 million annually from Measure P — and some members of the local arts community are not happy with the results.

The highly anticipated plan lays out a vision for how to spend the 3/8-cent sales tax passed by voters in 2018 to expand access to arts and culture in Fresno for the next 30 years.

The plan — developed through the city’s Parks, After School, Recreation and Community Service (PARCS) Department in partnership with the Fresno Arts Council and other local stakeholders — is a necessary step before distributing competitive grants to local nonprofits.

A group representing local arts organizations including Arte Americas, Good Company Players, the Fresno Art Museum and the Fresno Philharmonic say in an open letter Monday evening that the PARCS Department took a heavy hand in developing the plan.

“…the PARCS Department has dominated the process of creating the CAP [Cultural Arts Plan], working directly with a consultant contracted by the City for a fee of $150,000, while sidelining the Fresno Arts Council,” according to the letter. “While the PARCS Department did solicit broad community input to the CAP through surveys and community meetings, the resulting draft betrays a striking lack of knowledge and understanding of the local arts community and contains many highly questionable and confusing recommendations.”

Among the complaints is that the plan doesn’t give clear guidance on the creation of an arts grant program to be run by the Fresno Arts Council. About 12% of Measure P funds are set aside for such grants, according to the letter.

The draft also contains recommendations that go beyond the language of Measure P without specifying the funding source, according to the letter.

“Most troubling, the draft CAP recommends the creation of a division within the PARCS Department dedicated to expanding citywide arts and culture,” according to the letter. “The PARCS Department obviously sees itself as supplanting the Fresno Arts Council in connection with Measure P, directly in contravention of the ordinance’s language and the intent of those who drafted and voted for Measure P.”

Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White said in a statement:

“The letter provides one perspective of the process thus far. I disagree with many statements in the letter; however, I must directly counter the statement, ‘The PARCS Department obviously sees itself as supplanting the Fresno Arts Council in connection with Measure P, directly in contravention of the ordinance’s language and the intent of those who drafted and voted for Measure P.’ I unequivocally reject that statement as untrue. As I have stated numerous times in numerous conversations with the Fresno Arts Council, the Administration also does not support several of the recommendations in the draft Plan. However, we believe in transparency and did not want to censor any recommendations that were in the draft Plan.”

She added that if the Fresno Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission wishes to remove any of the draft recommendations before the plan is finalized and presented to the City Council, “that is their prerogative and within their Authority under the Measure P ordinance.”

According to the plan, the division with the PARCS Department would act as a liaison between the city, Fresno Arts Council and local arts and culture organizations. It would also create a process to track implementation and performance toward goals of Measure P.

Other strategies in the plan include incorporating arts and culture into FAX’s public transportation facilities, establishing a citywide mural policy, evaluating an expansion of the boundaries of the current downtown Cultural Arts District to include other areas known for public art (Fulton Street) and more.

The plan’s appendix includes several comments from members of the Fresno Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission subcommittee expressing concerns that the Fresno Arts Council is being shut out of the planning process.

Such concerns were shared in March when the subcommittee was given a draft of the plan. The PARCS department refused a request for revisions and sent it as is, according to the letter.

“To send the document out in its current state would only serve to confuse and alarm the voters who so passionately look to this plan as a guide for how Measure P funds can be used,” said Fresno Arts Council Executive Director Lilia Chavez in a March 8 email included in the plan. “Even though the plan has a greater purpose, in it’s current state it is inflammatory and could do more harm, than the good we are all seeking.”

The letter calls for members of the Fresno City Council to direct the release of raw data collected in the creation of the plan and have the city-hired consultants work directly with the Fresno Arts Council on a revised draft that will be considered by the city council.

Public comment on the plan can be delivered to prac@fresno.gov by June 5. A revised timeline would have the plan going before the city council in August.