Minnesota Artists are Twice as Likely To…
2/9/07
1. Minnesota Artists are Twice as Likely To…
2. Favorable Version of Heritage Bill Passes First Committee
3. Arts Appropriation Hearings Ongoing
4. More on the State Poet Laureate Bill
5. Join MCA in MySpace
6. State Arts Board Director Job Re-Posted
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1. Minnesota Artists are Twice as Likely To…
Wouldn’t you like to know how this sentence ends? You can find out, with the rest of the world, on March 8th, at Arts Advocacy Day, when we release the results of the Artists Count economic impact study of artists.
Minnesota Citizens for the Arts invites you to join your fellow arts advocates at the MN History Center and State Capitol to talk about the arts, make new friends, and educate our legislators about the importance of the arts to Minnesota. At Arts Advocacy Day, YOU along with individual artists, rural theaters, suburban choirs, big institutions, museums, art centers, painters, tenors, students, dancers, musicians, arts administrators, arts lovers will join together to talk about the impact of the arts on the economy and communities of our state.
Our goal this year is to restore arts funding. Be part of the team! Register online and find out more at www.mtn.org/mca
And be the first to hear the results of Artists Count! a comprehensive statewide and regional economic impact study of individual artists in Minnesota. The economic impact of the artists of our state were studied this year through a groundbreaking study conducted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts (MCA), Springboard for the Arts and the Minnesota Crafts Council. For the first time ever, six regional studies as well as a statewide study measuring the economic impact of individual artists, as well as a look at artists’ access to health care and retirement plans, has been produced. The results of these seven studies will be released for the first time at the morning rally at Arts Advocacy Day. As an attendee, you will receive the very first public reports of the economic impact of artists in Minnesota as well as in your own region. We are more and more excited about the results of these studies and believe that they will be very useful both for statewide and for local arts advocay. No matter where you live in Minnesota, you will also have a regional report that you can use to talk about the economic impact of artists in your own area.
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2. Favorable Version of Heritage Bill Passes First Committee
MCA’s long term goal is a constitutional amendment dedicating a small portion of sales tax revenue to Minnesota’s Heritage* This bill has the potential to double or triple state funding for the arts. The funding, just like the regular appropriation, would benefit arts organizations and artists in every Minnesota county via grants from the Regional Arts Councils and Minnesota State Arts Board.
Choosing among many versions of the bill with many different authors, the Senate Environment Committee this week passed out, on a voice vote, Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller’s (DFL, Mpls.) Senate File #6, the constitutional amendment bill that we preferred because it appropriates the most money to the arts. The next step for the Senate bill is a visit to Sen. Ann Rest’s State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Committee. After that, it will go to Sen. Cohen’s Finance Committee where the real work on the bill will begin. A great first step! Many versions of this bill have introduced in the House and Senate, some of which include the arts and some of which don’t. There will be many more hearings in many more committees before the legislature decides what to do with these bills. Although it is early in the legislative session, establishing early on the will of the Senate to include the arts in this bill is a very important statement.
*There are many versions of the bill at this point. Some or all of them include the arts, parks and trails, clean water, game and fish habitat, and other items. Some versions of the bill would bring the arts around $23 million per year by FY09. Some versions of the bill would ask the voters to approve a small additional sales tax (3/8th of 1%, or about 37 cents for each $100 spent). Some versions would just designate these funds from “current revenues.” (It is this difference between the House and Senate bills that has been the most controversial, and which in the end kept the bill from passing last year).
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3. Arts Appropriation Hearings Ongoing
There will be many hearings on the arts appropriation over the next several months. The next one is next week in the Senate Finance - Economic Development Budget Division. Governor Pawlenty has proposed adding an additional $500,000 per year, or $1 million total, to the appropriation for the arts. The money would be added to the Minnesota State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils budgets for grants and administration. (Currently the state appropriates approximately $8.5 million to the arts annually). The context for this increase, while it is welcome, is that the Governor proposed cutting 40% of the appropriation in 2002, resulting in a cut of 32% that year. Although this is an excellent first step, our number one priority this year is that the appropriation be fully restored. This would take approximately $5.5 million per year if we included a small increase for inflation. The good news is that the Governor’s recommendation will strengthen our message of restoration. However, it’s not nearly enough and we are competing with a lot of other issues for limited funds so we need to make our voices heard and for sure we need to have a big turnout at Advocacy Day.
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4. More on the State Poet Laureate Bill
The political pundits participating in MPR’s “Fantasy Legislature” have designated Rep. Phyllis Kahn’s bill to establish a Poet Laureate for Minnesota as a winner. They think it’s one of the bills most likely to pass both houses, to be vetoed by the Governor, and then to have the veto overridden by both the House and Senate. Let’s hope they are right. Co-authors in the House are Representatives Urdahl, Hilty, Jaros and Hausman.
Politics in Minnesota, The Newsletter, did some research into State Poet Laureates. Their article is reprinted here with their permission. Thanks to Sarah Janecek and Blois Olson at www.politicsinminnesota.com
Once Again For Phyllis Kahn
The Quest For Poet Laureate Is On
Two years ago, Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed legislation overwhelmingly passed in both chambers that would have created a state poet laureate. In the veto message at the time, Pawlenty wrote, “I also have some concern this will lead to calls for other similar positions. We could see requests for a state mime, interpretive dancer or potter.” Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis), who coauthored the legislation carried by former GOP Rep. Barb Sykora before, has introduced the bill again. However, the sometimes unappreciated but very smart and nonpartisan staff in the House Research Department decided to have fun with it, and the bill is written as a poem:
The poet will be free to write rhyming lines,
With removal only for cause,
But we trust that the bard will promptly resign,
If the verse reads as badly as laws.
Perhaps the Governor doth protest over poets too much. Forty states plus the District of Columbia have state poets. Duluth and St. Paul have city poets (Mayor Chris Coleman named local writer Caroll Connellly to serve as the first poet) and Winona is thinking about it. Then there’s the obvious: If a state can have a state muffin, shouldn’t it have a state poet laureate? Maybe the state poet could write the first poem about the muffin, something like, “Minnesota winters dark and dreary, make citizens crave their muffins blueberry.”
Turns out that Minnesota may have already had two state poets. Some group called the Poet Laureate League awarded the title to Margaret Ball Dickson from Staples in 1934. Then-Gov. Floyd B. Olson sent her a letter of congratulations, albeit without designating the post as an official appointment. Forty years later, then-Minneapolis Star columnist Abe Altrowitz, who wrote a column called “The View from Lake Calhoun,” proclaimed himself to be “Minnesota Commissioner of Poetry.” Through his column, he held a statewide election where, for a one dollar donation to the American Cancer Society, readers could vote for a poet. The winner was Laurene Tibbbetts from St. Paul, a woman who, Altrowitz wrote, refused to reveal her age because she doesn’t believe in women revealing their ages and she preferred Miss to Ms.
Now during the course of this whole affair, there was some question about whether Altrowitz could be the Minnesota Commissioner of Poetry. An opinion was sought from then-DFL Attorney General Warren Spannaus. Then-DFL Governor Wendy Anderson issued a formal declaration and wrote:
So we should honor you in kind
The job is yours to keep
As governor I’m please to find
A man who works so cheap.
Ah me, ah me–that word, cheap.
…And for state poet laureate supporters, “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
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5. Join MCA in MySpace
MCA is redesigning our website and hope to launch the new one soon. In the meantime, we’ve joined the community of MySpace to give our Campus Arts Advocates a quick place to pick up information about Advocacy Day and other activities. We’ve got some fun pictures and even a video about MCA that is living on this page and in You Tube. Thanks to MCA Field Worker Mark Albers, who is many years younger than me, for making these innovations possible. Check out the page at: http://www.myspace.com/mncitizensforthearts
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6. State Arts Board Director Job Re-Posted
Tom Proehl is doing a wonderful job as Interim Executive Director at the Minnesota State Arts Board. However, he has only committed to the job on an interim basis. Tom will continue in that capacity for an indefinite period or until a new Executive Director has been appointed. Therefore, the Minnesota State Arts Board continues its search for a permanent Executive Director. The position description and application procedures are posted here: www.arts.state.mn.us/about/employment.htm. DEADLINE IS FEB. 28.
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http://www.mtn.org/mca
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• information about Minnesota Citizens for the Arts,
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MCA is a non-partisan statewide arts advocacy organization whose mission is to ensure opportunity for all people to have access to and involvement in the arts. MCA organizes the arts community and lobbies the Minnesota State Legislature and Congress on issues pertaining to the nonprofit arts. If you are interested in learning more about how to advocate for the arts, or how to activate people in your arts organization or community to lobby for the arts, please call us at 651-251-0868 or e-mail mca@mtn.org.
State arts funding supports access to the arts for all Minnesotans. The state-funded Minnesota State Arts Board and eleven Regional Arts Councils provide grants and services in every Minnesota county for artists, arts organizations, arts projects and school artist residencies. For more information on regional or state grants, go to http://www.arts.state.mn.us/racs/index.htm