Around the Creek: City again to study economic impact of arts; $1 million grant to Lesher Center

As the city's new Blue Ribbon task force gets to work to find ways to ensure Walnut Creek's long-term financial stability, the city is also gathering data again on how its arts scene benefits the economy.

The city has signed up to participate in the Arts and Prosperity IV study. This fourth national study by the Washington D.C.-based Americans for the Arts organization looks at how arts and cultural activities enrich the economies of local communities. Some 200 cities across the country are participating.  

Walnut Creek participated in the third national study, whose results, released in 2007, showed that the local arts scene, centered around the Lesher Center for the Arts and Civic Arts Education, generated $56 million in local economic activity. 

Nonprofit arts and cultural organizations spent $18.62 million, while audiences spent an additional $37.58 million on dining out, shopping and other activities related to attending plays, concerts and arts classes in Walnut Creek, the Arts and Economic Prosperity III report showed. This spending helped support the equivalent of 1,482 full-time jobs. 

"The key lesson from Arts & Economic Prosperity III is that communities that invest in the arts reap the additional benefit of jobs, economic growth and a quality of life that positions those communities to compete in our 21st century creative economy," wrote Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. 

The Lesher Center and the Diablo Regional Arts Association, which raises money for Lesher Center programs, are distributing the survey, which you can find here. The results will be announced in May 2012. 

The membership of the city's economic task force is to be announced Monday. Task force members, who will include the city's treasurer and two council members, will begin work this month and spend about a year meeting and studying Walnut Creek's finances--employee benefit costs, investment strategies and reserves--before making their recommendations. 

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The Lesher Center and arts organizations that use it received a major funding boost last week in the form of a five-year $1,050,000 grant. The grant comes from the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation.

The late Dean Lesher was the publisher of the Contra Costa Times. He and his wife Margaret were major backers of the Lesher Center, which just celebrated its 20th anniversary. They also created the Lesher Foundation to provide a steady funding source for the center and other arts and community groups in Contra Costa County. 

Steve Lesher, the Lesher Foundation's vice president and grandson of Dean Lesher, announced the grant at Tuesday night's City Council meeting. 

The grant will distribute $210,000 per year for five years. The arts association, which in turn disburses grants to arts companies, will receive $150,000 per year. Other recipients are , the city-owned theater company; and the , in the Lesher Center.

"The arts are a vital part of both our economy and our identity here in Walnut Creek," Lesher said. "We are very honored that the generation before us had the foresight to build a cultural arts center."