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Representative Darwin Booher Wexford and Osceola Counties S1386 House Office Building P.O. Box 30014, Lansing, MI 48909 Phone: (517) 373-1747 Fax (517) 373-9371 Email: darwinbooher@house.mi.gov |
Representative Joel Sheltrown Missaukee, Roscommon, Iosco and Ogemaw Counties 1387 House Office Building P.O. Box 30014, Lansing, MI 48909 Phone: (517) 373-3817 (517) 373-5495 Email: joelsheltrown@house.mi.gov
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Senator Michelle McManus Wexford, Missaukee, Lake, Osceola, and seven other northern counties P.O. Box 30086, 905 Farnum Building Lansing, MI 48909, (517)373-1725 Phone: toll free: (866) 305-2135 Fax: (517) 373-0741 Email: senMMcManus@senate.michigan.gov |
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ArtServe Michigan Website - http://www.artservemichigan.org/
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MCACA Clients:
I speak to you today as
ArtServe Michigan, fellow client of the Michigan Council for Arts and
Cultural Affairs.
As you are all painfully
aware, Governor Granholm has recommended nearly zeroing out of arts and
cultural grant funding – negatively affecting each and every one of our
organizations. Whether you receive a small or large amount of funding from
the council, we all understand the significance of this funding. Every
single one of us knows the impact that our organization has on our
community/region and the importance that we as a whole offer to the future
of the state of Michigan.
Now is not the time to
sit back and get angry once this funding is zeroed out. I am told by John
Bracey that between our 290 organizations we employ 17,000 people. As of
today, only 3,000 people have sent in a letter to the Governor prompting
me to think that we all need to continue to stress the importance of
retaining this funding. While receiving no money from the arts council may
not cause each and every one of us to close our doors, lose employees or
cut programming; many of us will have to face this reality.
It has become painfully
obvious that we cannot count on the high level of financial support that
we’ve received from foundations, corporations and individuals in the past.
Ridding the state of arts and cultural funding will only exacerbate this
problem as we will see organizations plead for money to these funders for
the same pot of money – further straining the sector as a whole.
I am pleading with you
today, to help spread our message to your employees, members and
constituents. Without your help, we will all not only lose our funding
from the state but many of us will be forced to close our doors or will
lose our jobs. I am asking for your support, not in the form of money, but
in the form of 2-minutes of your time. It takes less than 2 minutes to
email a letter to the Governor and your legislators.
Please help us get more
people to send in emails to the Governor. We will continue to keep our
original letter open until the end of the week and will come out with a
new letter. We cannot stop with one email or one letter…we must continue
to pepper our elected officials
The link that goes
directly to an already drafted letter is:
http://capwiz.com/artsusa/mi/issues/alert/?alertid=12673381
I hope that you all
understand the importance and immediacy of what we are trying to
accomplish and are able to pitch in.
Have a great rest of the
day,
Mike Latvis
ArtServe Michigan
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Since Fiscal Year 2002, state funding for arts and culture has been drastically reduced.
As part of these reductions, The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA) budget has been slashed by over 60%, a much deeper cut than other areas of the state budget. In the best of times, this would be a crisis. Given the “worst of times” in which we currently find ourselves, it is an even more dire situation. Currently Michigan ranks thirty-fifth in per capita spending for state arts agencies. As we struggle to reinvent our State and its economy, there is one thing we know for sure; whatever the nature of that future economy, it will be based on creativity and innovation – on human capital – on talent. In the report “A New Agenda for a New Michigan”, issued last spring, Michigan Future, Inc. concluded that what most distinguishes areas across our country that are thriving is “their concentration of talent, where talent is defined as a combination of knowledge, creativity and entrepreneurship. Quite simply, in a knowledge-driven and entrepreneurial economy, the places with the greatest concentration of talent win.” The report goes on to say “Our agenda to help better position Michigan and its regions to succeed in a knowledge-driven economy is centered on 1) developing a culture and 2) making key public investments that are aimed at preparing, retaining and attracting talent.” We also know that there is no other area of human activity (or the state budget) that does more to attract, develop and capitalize on that talent. What other area can deliver the following?
The bottom line is that Michigan’s creative talents and cultural assets are part of the solution to the crisis we now face. As we watch companies and jobs go away on a daily basis, it is clear that we have little or no control over decisions made in corporate board rooms. Corporations cannot afford to show loyalty to a community, state or even a country when it jeopardizes their bottom line. Given this, we need to rethink where we invest our limited state resources. We need to invest in those things that are inherently and uniquely Michigan . . . our vast natural resources and our incredible cultural resources - the art, the music, the stories, the traditions, the inventions - those things created by our people. These natural and cultural resources are our competitive edge. They are rooted here. Their identity and existence is tied to Michigan and they cannot move away. The only way we can lose them is to fail to provide adequate stewardship over them and fail to invest in them. If funding for Michigan’s large cultural institutions, community art organizations, and art education programs continues to erode, wholesale elimination of arts programs and services and closure of culture institutions and community arts organizations is inevitable. This will mean the destruction of the very resources that have the potential to dig us out of this hole. A new RAND study, “Arts and Culture in the Metropolis: Strategies for Sustainability,” examines the size and structure of the arts sector and systems of support in major metropolitan areas. A portion of the study compared the service levels provided by communities’ support systems across five functional areas (financial support, technical assistance, arts presentation, arts promotion, and economic development) each metropolitan area was ranked in these areas into three categories: basic, moderate and full service. Detroit was among the cities they examined and the only city to rank in the “basic” category for all five areas of support systems. Although the study only looked at the major metropolitan area of Detroit and not the entire state of Michigan, the assumption can be made that the rest of the state is lagging as well, with even fewer resources available. The writing is on the wall. Michigan must invest now or our communities throughout the state will lose the very resources that give them a potential competitive edge. Experts agree that in the new economy, cities and regions establish and maintain that competitive edge by generating, retaining, and attracting talent and innovation. Nothing attracts talent like an exciting, diverse, vibrant arts and cultural scene that respects, nurtures and invests in creativity, innovation, imagination and ideas. If incremental increases to restore funding to past levels for arts and cultural grants in Michigan does not begin now, or even worse, if further cuts are made, Michigan, its citizens and economy will lose. Facts of the Current Situation (before any of the current proposals by either the Governor or the Senate both of which contain further disinvestment:
Michigan was fourth, but now ranks thirty-fifth in the nation in per capita spending for state arts agencies.
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