Report from California Arts Council 's 12/12/2023 Public Meeting

California Arts Council 12-12-23 Public Meeting

Summary notes – The final decisions on the 2024 grant programs were made, but only the decision on which programs would be available.  The Programs and Policy Committee will now work on Guidelines for each of the programs which will be presented at the January meeting, and then voted on at a subsequent meeting.  

CA for the Arts is tracking these program changes and voting items on our webpage, #FundCAArts and we will provide updates as the new guidelines are being proposed. We encourage everyone to stay involved and informed. Please contact Tracy Hudak, Director of Field Engagement, should you have any comments or concerns that you’d like us to be aware of, at Tracy@californiansforthearts.org

Full agenda and 12/12/23 meeting packet are available on the CAC website.

The meeting began with a call to order land acknowledgement, and establishing a quorum. The Chair introduced the Parliamentarian who would help monitor the meeting.

Item 5: 2024 Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act Updates Chief Deputy Director, Kayla Unger, presented a briefing on a new update to the Bagley-Keene Act that will take effect in January 2024. The goal of the update is to ensure that for public meetings there are a majority of members in one location, with staff, where the public can have physical access to the meeting. Remote participation by Council members will be allowed, but very specific circumstances will be required. This is a preliminary presentation on the new requirements and staff expects further clarification to come in the new year. 

Item 6: The minutes from the October and November meetings were presented. It was noted that the format of the minutes have been changed at the suggestion of the Parliamentarian. The format will be a list of the actions and decisions but not a full transcript of the proceedings. Council members expressed concern about the format and content of the minutes and so they were not voted on.  They will be returned to staff for revision and voted on at a future meeting.

Item 7: There was a period of Public Comment that included numerous statements from members of the field from across the state. Without enumerating the contents of all of the comments, it is worth noting that multiple Council members noted during the meeting the impact that the Public Comment has. 

Voting Item 8: The Programs and Policy Committee presented the 2024 Programs to be voted on.
The programs committee recommendations were passed largely as presented.  The one change was that instead of just saying Arts & Youth Programs they spelled out 3 specific programs.

The CAC Programs to be funded for 2024/25 cycle will be:
- Impact Projects
- Arts & Cultural Organizations General Operating Support Tier 2 (budgets $250,000 to $1 million) and Tier 3 (budgets $1 million to $1.5 million) only
- Statewide and Regional Networks
- State-Local Partners (SLP)
- SLP-Mentorships
- Arts Education Exposure
- Arts Integration Training
- Creative Youth Development
- Emerging Cultural Districts

This vote only determined the programs to be funded, the guidelines which will determine things like the $3 million cap will be presented and voted on at the January 12, 2024 meeting.  The GenOps for Tier 2 and Tier 3 will be just a one year grant as opposed to the 2 year grants that were done in 2023.  That way everyone gets back on the same cycle in 2025

There was discussion about the impact of Prop 28 and how that should or should not impact the CAC funding.  The idea was that three included programs would be the areas of arts education that would not be supported by Prop 28.

Council Member Gerald Carpenter made a motion, seconded by Council Member Caleb Duarte to add Cultural Pathways and Cultural Pathways Technical Assistance, but that action failed.

The council expressed gratitude for all of the input from the public to help shape these decisions. 

The CAC staff will research, convene, and design up to four new programs for 2025: a Native American Initiative, Touring and Presenting, Disability Program, and Anchor Institutions Project.

It was noted multiple times during the conversation that there is a profound need to increase overall funding for the Council so that the full ecosystem of artists can more effectively be supported.

Voting Item 10 – Governance Committee presented revised Bylaws to be voted on (Tab M in the meeting book) The complete text of the changes to the bylaws are included in the meeting book.  The meeting book includes a comparison copy of the original and revised bylaws. According to the Committee presentation most of the changes are included in confirming what council members duties are, attempting to clarify some vagueness. There were also updates to the responsibilities and duties of the Chair, Vice Chair, and Executive Director. 

Within the Council Members section of the bylaws, the following change was made: 

CURRENT BYLAWS LANGUAGE: Establish general policy within the framework of policy established by the Legislature and the Governor; and in accordance with state and federal laws and regulations.

NEW BYLAWS LANGUAGE: Establish and approve policy regarding the Council's programs and allocations in accordance with state and federal laws and regulations. Agency Director and staff abide by the policies set by the Council regarding programs, procedures, and allocations.

The revised bylaws were voted on and passed unanimously.

Voting Item 11 – 2024 Executive Committee Elections
The new chair of the CAC will be Roxanne Messina Captor and the Vice Chair will be Leah Goodwin.  The vote for chair, between Roxanne Captor and Vicki Estrada, ended in a tie 3 times and was ultimately determined by the flip of a coin.

Item 12 Committee Reports:
The Equity Committee presented a year-end report reviewing what they worked on during the year.  The report is included in the meeting book.