Thanks to the voters of Cuyahoga County, Issue 55–the cigarette tax for the arts–has passed. And once again, public support for the arts has passed overwhelmingly, with unofficial results reporting 72 percent of voters in favor of the measure. That boosts the tax on cigarettes to 70 cents per pack, which at least in the near term will lift public […]
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After posing questions that the arts sector has faced for years, Cuyahoga County Council unanimously moved Tuesday night (June 4) to put before voters the option to replace the current cigarette tax for the arts. The third reading by County Council makes it official: the opportunity to approve or deny an increase from 1.5 cents to 3.5 cents per cigarette […]
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The Cuyahoga Arts and Culture board of directors answered a couple of questions that have hung over the public art funding agency for its recent history. In a unanimous roll call vote, the board approved a resolution to put a 3.5 cent per-cigarette tax before voters in November, for the first time committing to when the issue would be on […]
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For more than a year, artists have complained that Cuyahoga Arts and Culture –the entity that administers the cigarette tax for the arts–did not meet the requirement that at least two of its members “devote a major portion of their time to practicing, performing or teaching any of the arts, or […] are professional administrators in any field of the […]
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The list of applicants to serve on the Board of Directors at Cuyahoga Arts and Culture has grown a bit since CAN last reported. As of January 4, 19 people had applied for the coming term. The County Executive’s office initially said they “ideally” wanted all applications in hand by January 1, but has confirmed that applications are still being […]
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Cuyahoga Arts and Culture Board President Nancy Mendez apologized to artists present at the CAC Board meeting December 13. An apology was the first priority expressed in the 2023 Support for Artists: Community Engagement and Planning report, commissioned by CAC and delivered a week earlier by a contractor on behalf of Assembly for the Arts. CAC director Jill Paulsen said […]
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Cuyahoga Arts and Culture’s entire budget for partner organizations making individual artist grants each year–$400,000 –is less than one percent of Deshaun Watson’s annual salary. Indeed, the sum of all grants CAC’s board recently approved for all organizations combined amounts to less than 25 percent of that one football player’s annual salary. This tangential comparison doesn’t just highlight the difference […]
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Cuyahoga Arts and Culture’s Board of Directors meets at 3:30 Wednesday, December 13 in the Louis Stokes Wing of Cleveland Public Library, and if you care about the arts or if you like reality television, you should go. The Board’s public behavior has been an embarrassment to the sector for all of 2023. The good news is that the terms […]
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To be polite and understated, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture has a lot going on right now. The organization that administers public funding for the arts is facing criticism from artists over the way it has handled individual artist grants in recent years, and a discrepancy between amounts budgeted for individual artist grants and the amounts actually spent. In discussion of […]
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The nonprofit advocacy organization Assembly for the Arts rolls out a new grant program for individual Cuyahoga County artists this week, supported by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. Assembly for the Arts Executive Director Jeremy Johnson and Chief Community Officer Deidre McPherson spoke about the program via Zoom. Assembly joins Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, Karamu House, and SPACES Gallery […]
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