Fort Worth plan for arts and culture calls for trust fund
The plan that will guide the city’s cultural development for the next 10 years calls for creating a trust fund for the arts to ensure funding for projects in the future.
“Funding for arts and culture — obviously always a challenge in any area of our community, very much so in arts and culture, and our aspiration is to to design and implement public and private funding mechanisms,” said Robert Benda, co-chair of the steering committee responsible for the plan, to City Council members in a report Tuesday.
City funding for the arts quickly goes on the chopping block in tough budget years. In 2012, the city proposed cutting arts funding by 55 percent, although that was later reversed. The City Council also voted to reduce the amount of money going to public art from the 2014 bond program. Historically, 2 percent of bond program funds were reserved for art, but that was reduced to 1.2 percent for this bond issue.
The Fort Worth Cultural Plan, which hasn’t been updated since 2002, is a joint effort between the City of Fort Worth and the Arts Council of Fort Worth, and has six goals: education, economic development and urban revitalization, funding for arts and culture, diversity and inclusion, messaging and marketing, and strengthened cultural ecology.
Possible partners for the Fort Worth Cultural Trust could include the city, the arts council, cultural organizations, foundations, civic and business leaders and elected officials, according to the plan. The initial cost — $60,000 to $85,000 — is about 4 to 5 percent of the trust goal.
The plan also calls for a review of art programs available in public and private schools and to create mechanisms to assist local art and cultural organizations to partner with schools. It calls for a master plan of needed cultural facilities, which would cost about $75,000 to $100,000 and an update of the 2003 Public Art Master Plan, which could cost between $10,000-$50,000.
Other initiatives are to beef up staffing at the Fort Worth Arts Council, at a cost of about $50,000 to $100,000 and to create a bi-annual “state of the arts” report in Fort Worth.
City Council members praised the detail of the plan. They are scheduled to vote on the plan in February.
Caty Hirst, 817-390-7984
Synchronizing traffic signals
The council unanimously approved working with the North Central Texas Council of Governments to synchronize traffic signals at 140 intersections on nine arterial corridors in Fort Worth. Councilman Sal Espino was absent.
The corridors are:
Eighth Avenue from West Cantey Street to Pennsylvania Avenue.
Alta Mesa Boulevard from Oak Grove Road to South Hulen Street.
North Beach Street from Texas 121 to North Tarrant Parkway.
Bryant Irvin Road from Bellaire Drive South to Dutch Branch Road.
South Hulen Street from Interstate 30 to Granbury Road.
McCart Avenue from Interstate 20 to Risinger Road.
South Riverside Drive from East Berry Street to East Lancaster Avenue.
Rosedale Street from Forest Park Boulevard to U.S. 287.
Seminary Drive from McCart Avenue to Interstate 35W.
This story was originally published January 27, 2015 at 7:33 PM with the headline "Fort Worth plan for arts and culture calls for trust fund."