At a Tuesday evening District 3 Town Hall, some attendees participated in a pre-meeting exercise. They could place colored stickers on sheets of paper taped to City Council Chambers walls that represented budget concerns. The most high-priority (yellow) stickers went on Arts & Culture.
The next morning, after much public debate and rallying, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria revealed his revised 2027 city budget plan. The yellow stickers held no sway. There was no restoration of $12 million in cuts to arts and culture programs.
The mayor did announce partial restoration of some programs that had been on the chopping block in his $6.42 billion budget. Recreation center and library hours were added back in for Districts 4, 8, and 9. Support staff to keep December Nights in Balboa Park running was put back in the budget.
Various other one-off projects also went back in. Mayor Gloria said that was because of a slight uptick in revenue from tourism and municipal golf courses.
After identifying his May revised budget, Mayor Gloria definitively indicated arts and culture programming would not be restored.
Gloria would not have enjoyed attending the D3 Town Hall.
San Diego City Council District 3 covers downtown, Hillcrest, North Park, South Park, Balboa Park, Bankers Hill, Golden Hill, Old Town and University Heights.
Speaker after speaker argued for restoring arts and culture funding in the city budget. San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture Chair Alessa Moctezuma noted that District 3 has an abundance of organizations that are slated to lose funding and that “it’s going to be pretty disastrous for some of them.”
Speakers also touched on the abundance of LGBTQ organizations in D3 that will be affected by cuts, including Diversionary Theatre in University Heights. “At this point, as an LGBTQ organization we are being cut out of the budget,” one speaker said.
A senior woman who helps care for two grandchildren in North Park said she has been frequenting Balboa Park at least three times a week. “As an arts ‘frequent flyer’ I cannot tell you how often I sat next to somebody who is here from another city or state because they heard about a play in Balboa Park, or a performance at the Rady Shell or the Symphony,” she said. That’s a plus for tourism, she added, “and I’d hate to see that negatively impacted.”
A long-time employee at the Natural History Museum said that the budget process has been a rudderless endeavor. “What is not acceptable is how the arts community has been treated over the past six months, a process that has been surprising, demoralizing, and frankly, offensive,” she said. “City leaders call Balboa Park the crown jewel of San Diego. They stand in front of cameras for Museum Month…But when the budget gets tight and the going gets tough, arts funding isn’t trimmed like other departments. It’s decimated, 100% gutted.”
Arts and culture wasn’t the only topic broached in the D3 Town Hall, hosted by City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn and attended by San Diego Independent Budget Analyst Charles Modica.
Other speakers voiced concern about the vacant Horton Plaza project; homelessness programs; affordable homes; bike lanes; and the lack of funding cuts aimed at the San Diego Police Department.
How can we justify increasing SDPD’s budget with the knowledge that with their current funding levels, crime continues to decrease?” one speaker asked.
Still, the primary point of contention aired during the D3 Town Hall was arts and culture funding.
After one attendee chastised Whitburn for not being more vocal during city council meetings focused on budget cuts, he claimed to support getting some funding back to arts.
“People are going to understand where I am on the budget when I release my priority memo and when I vote on the budget,” Whitburn said. “You may prefer to see something different and I appreciate that. That’s your perspective. I like to listen. I like to be thoughtful.”
Other council members who have publicly expressed interest in putting money back into arts and culture include Raul Campillo (D7) and Sean Elo-Rivera (D9).
The next steps in the process after the mayor issuing his revised budget is a public meeting that will take place in Council Chambers on May 18 at 6 p.m.
The city council vote on a new budget is slated for June 9. The new fiscal year begins July 1. SDSun
