Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Dade County Arts Emergency Alert

Dade Cultural Alliance Action Alert #1

Follow-up and Action Steps re: Proposed $3.5 Million Cut to the Miami-Dade County Cultural Budget

At the recent town meeting convened by the Department of Cultural Affairs alerting the cultural community about the $3.5 million budget cut currently being recommended for the Miami-Dade County cultural budget, the Dade Cultural Alliance (DCA) promised to provide an advocacy action plan for immediate implementation to counter this preliminary budget proposal. All communication and advocacy on this issue needs to happen before the end of August in order to have an impact, so please do whatever you can by August 24th.

The first Budget Hearing of the County Commission is on September 6th, and many of its budget recommendations will be formulated and determined in the weeks leading up to the first budget hearing.

Here is what needs to be done immediately (if clicking on the links below does not work for some reason, you can copy and paste the links into your web browser):

(1) Write to and/or call County Commissioners immediately and ask everyone on your board and on your mailing lists to do the same (for convenience, a sample letter is below, which can be personalized and adapted as you like). For additional impact of the arts facts, please click here: http://www.miamidadearts.org/documents/Impact_of_Arts-Miami-Dade.pdf

In particular, make sure your County Commissioner (the Commissioner for your electoral district) hears from you and make sure they know you are their constituent. Also, please bear in mind that the County Commission did not make these initial budget recommendations, but has the power to change them.

To find (or confirm) which of the County Commissioners is yours, click here: http://gisims2.miamidade.gov/CServices/CSMap.asp/Cmd=DUMMY&ShowWhat=12.

Or, to go directly to contact your Commissioner if you know which Commissioner is yours, click here: http://www.miamidade.gov/commiss/contact.asp

Please note: Commissioner Natacha Seijas does not use email. A phone call, fax (305-375-2011) or regular letter is required to reach her.

(2)
If you or someone associated with your organization has a particularly close relationship with any member(s) of the County Commission, meet with/dine with/ golf with/play poker with those individuals ASAP, and ask for and secure the support of that Commissioner for restoration of the full cultural budget for the County.

(3) Thank you to all who have contributed $25 already to the DCA to help get our website back up and running. Our website will be the go to place to get up-to-the-minute status updates, strategies, and information on the advocacy efforts of the cultural community. We need you and others to contribute additionally to this effort. If you can help out, please open the attached form, complete and submit it as soon as possible.

(4) Expect more action alerts from us in the coming weeks and act on them as soon as you get them. Our window of opportunity is right now and is short. We cannot afford to delay our actions at all.

Thank you.

SAMPLE LETTER
August ____, 2007
Dear Commissioner ______________________:
(Potential first sentence for the letter sent to the Commissioner for the district in which you live/vote:) I am writing to you, my elected representative to the County Commission, to let you know of my deep and abiding concern as a resident and voter regarding the Miami-Dade County FY2008 budget. (Potential first sentence for letters sent to all other County Commissioners:) There are critical issues affecting the Miami-Dade arts and cultural support for which we need your help. The proposed $3.5 million cut to the County Department of Cultural Affairs budget will immediately and directly threaten more than 500 cultural organizations who compete successfully for grants support each year.
The economic impact of the arts study, recently released by the Department of Cultural Affairs, demonstrates that every $1 dollar of County arts funding invested leverages $27 of other private and public funds. This return on investment is remarkable evidence of the effective and worthwhile use of public funds. While $3.5 million is comparatively little in the context of the County target for overall budget reduction, it is an enormous portion of the Miami-Dade County investment in its cultural life. Cutting these funds will have devastating, ripple effects across the various other funding sources that the County’s support helps to generate.
Among them, the more than 500 non-profit cultural grantees serve more than 2,000,000 children each year, providing educational and cultural experiences for Miami-Dade youth, many of whom would have no other opportunity to participate in cultural enrichment programs or be exposed to creative outlets. Annually, the Miami-Dade arts industry generates nearly $1 billion in local economic impact, employs roughly 23,000 people full-time, and, in addition, receives the contributed skills and time of 19,000 arts volunteers.
The County leadership and investment in the arts and culture has contributed directly to our community beginning to realize its goal of becoming one of the newest and most exciting cultural destinations in the world. We need your help, now more than ever, to restore $3.5 million to the Miami-Dade County cultural budget.
Thank you for your past support and for recognizing the value, importance and far-reaching benefits of building a great cultural life for our community. It is making a real difference.

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