Grow Arts & Culture: Things you can do

Steve: Your lack of credibility is very frustrating.

* Just because the arts are not filling your potholes does not make them less valid or important. By your argument, we should eliminate our firehouses and let our parks go to pot while we're at it.

* Arts organizations are backfilling services (music and arts education) that have been de-funded over the past several years.

* The city is backing an Armory loan of $10.6 million, not $35 million.

* Mr. Adams did not guarantee the loan. He wasn't on the Council at the time. Yes he worked for Vera during some of the Armory discussions, yeah yeah, we know.

* PCS's top ticket price of $60 for 5th Row Center is hardly "upwards of $100." Many tickets to Cabaret were $15. The average ticket sold was closer to $25.

* The show was sold out for most of its run. Capitalism succeeds, while access was provided for various ages and income groups, and PCS takes another step toward paying off its loan. How is this a problem?

Now that some of your misstatements have been corrected, let's address your question about how arts and culture helps our community. To begin, I recommend you have a look at this page:

http://www.creativecapacity.org/about/what/

And for a demonstration of the purely economic benefits, check out:

http://www.racc.org/resources/research/aep3.php

Now... let's discuss.

OK, I'll bite and I stand corrected:
* Just because the arts are not filling your potholes does not make them less valid or important. By your argument, we should eliminate our firehouses and let our parks go to pot while we're at it.

COMMENT - Not quite, my point is that potholes, police and education are basic things people pay taxes and expect govt to do. When we have so many holes (Mr Adams crisis) in the infrastructure that we have no money to fix and need to create a tax to remedy, I don’t feel increasing art funding is proper. The pattern has been to neglect things people want and then take any surplus for less important things like state-sanctioned arts groups.

* Arts organizations are backfilling services (music and arts education) that have been de-funded over the past several years.

COMMENT - CoP had a surplus of $30M this year and there is nothing stopping them from giving it to schools for arts training instead of helping Mr Gerding build his eponymous theater.

* The city is backing an Armory loan of $10.6 million, not $35 million.

COMMENT - I am still unclear why we are doing this. When they were in the Newmark, they had a hard time making budget. So now we expect them to make loan repayments on a larger building?

* The show was sold out for most of its run. Capitalism succeeds, while access was provided for various ages and income groups, and PCS takes another step toward paying off its loan. How is this a problem?

COMMENT - Hate to break this to you, but half the high schools and community theater groups in the country do West Side Story and Cabaret on a regular basis. Why did we need a $35M building to showcase these threadbare productions?

* The city is backing an Armory loan of $10.6 million, not $35 million.

COMMENT - The $28 million project will be financed by a $4.6 million loan from city urban renewal funds (tax payer money); a $10.6 million loan from U.S. Bank (guaranteed by CoP); $2 million in historic tax credits from the bank; and $8.6 million worth of "new market" tax credits. Tax credits mean there is that much less money being paid for schools and police. IT si almost all paid for with tax proceeds.

Moreover, based on City Hall’s record with things like the Tram, whole SoWa project and Civic Stadium, my guess is we are seeing the tip if the iceberg in liabilities – unless you can tell me of a recent city project that came in close to estimate.

As far as economic benefits, if you want to wage that battel, then let's build Nike or Intel a factory and give it to them tax free. I'd guess you'd get a lot more return for your $ that way. I am hard-pressed to buy an economic development argument from anyone in government. I mean we trotted out the same old tired arguments to build a pro baseball stadium (Civic Stadium was a guaranteed money-maker by Vera) and convention center hotel. They never pan out.

In conclusion, and I'll leave you alone, my issue about two points:
1) Govt-sponsored art is not necessary and usually happens to those who are friends of those in govt.
2) Priorities - We seem to be able to do art, baseball stadiums, trams, subsidies for $500K condos without new taxes. Yet to fix potholes, get better schools, more jails, repair bridges or the sewer system, we need to raise new taxes or fees. The dichotomy is stunning.

Well this is progress. At least now we are working with accurate statistics and noting the difference between universal facts and opinion/value statements. Thank you.

You and I can just agree to disagree. You think arts funding is improper. I believe it's essential. In my observation, Portland doesn't become a world class city and a prosperous community without investing in the arts. Rather, this $30M surplus the City has right now (really? $30M?) is BECAUSE we have a vibrant arts community -- among other things, of course. I agree, if you've seen one economic impact study you've seen them all, but you can't take the very real impact of the arts for granted.

Then again, since you believe that a high school production of Cabaret is the same thing as the PCS production, then I suppose you DO take all of this for granted (and with a grain of salt) and there's no point in debating it. But I tried.

Nice content-free rebuttal, AJ. It always amazes me how Portland liberals, when called on the carpet just spout, "well, yeah but..."

Basic services like schools, safety and transportation are underfunded in this town. Squandering millions on theaters is totally foolish.

Tell me, would you buy a 40-inch plasma screen TV before you fixed a hole in your roof?

Moreover, where do you get all this "Portland is a world-class" city nonsense. Seattle regularly back-hands Portland in almost every economic, cultural and social metric. That's because they are more business-friendly and have a better handle on managing a city.