What to Do About Walnut Creek's Arts Commission?

The city's Arts Commission has been around in one form or another for nearly 50 years. And, it's no stretch to say that this city advisory body, made up of volunteers appointed by the City Council, has played an important role in building up Walnut Creek's stellar programs in performing and visual arts and arts education.

Over the years, its various commissioners have worked to provide people in Walnut Creek and nearby communities with high-quality theater, music, dance, visual arts and arts classes at the Lesher Center and through Civic Arts Education.

But the role of the Arts Commission has come under question.

Then again, so have four of the five other city commissions and their advisory councils. "Staff and the City Council are looking at the structure of all the commissions and advisory councils, just to make sure the work they are doing meets their purpose," said Barry Gordon, director of the city's Arts, Recreation and Community Services division.

The Arts Commission will hold a special study session Monday afternoon to discuss its role.

Gordon said that the Park, Recreation and Open Space Commission, the Transportation Commission and the Bicycle Advisory Committee have held similar study sessions. Gordon doesn't expect any final recommendations to come  out of Monday's Arts Commission meeting, which will take place 4:30 p.m. in the Encore Room on the third floor of the Lesher Center for the Arts.

The work of the commissions and the advisory councils  take up staff time—preparing agendas and minutes, researching and acting on commissioners' questions and recommendations, Gordon acknowledged.

 "In light of all the budget reductions, the burden on staff time has grown, and it's incumbent on us to find ways to free up staff time, especially in the arts, recreation and community services divisions." Gordon said.

In the early 1990s, arts commissioners had a lot to do. Right after the opening of the Lesher Center, they had fiscal oversight of a quasi-enterprise Arts Partnership Fund that was partly supported by the city's general fund, Gordon said.

The commissioners received help in this oversight role by four advisory councils representing the Lesher Center for the Arts, the Bedford Gallery and Civic Arts Education. By  1997, the arts commission decided that the Lesher Center and Center Repertory councils were not necessary. In 2006, the city decided to do away with Arts Partnership Fund.

Through all this, the Lesher Center, Center Repertory Company and Civic Arts Education have matured into successful, robust entities offering programs that are popular with the public and that generate revenue for the city. These groups operate independently from the commission, with staff making programming decisions.

Since the Arts Partnership Fund was abolished, the primary focus of the six-member Arts Commission has been the public art program--helping decide the merit and suitability of works that the city and developers want to place around town.

The commission also reviews the biennial program assessments for the city arts programs, and makes recommendations to the City Council on program fees for the Lesher Center, Center Repertory Company and Civic Arts Education. The commission, however, does not have the authority to change programming or set fees.

The commission only has voting authority over public art projects. In reality, though, most of the work around artist and art selection has been done through the Bedford Gallery Advisory Council, a city staff report says. This "tends to create a 'rubber stamp' situation for the Arts Commission," the report says.

In recent years,  the Diablo Regional Arts Association has taken on a bigger share of the responsibility for improving the quality of Lesher Center programming and Center Repertory shows. DRAA is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to raise money to support theater, music, dance and visual arts productions at the Lesher Center. "Because of this, the Arts Commission's role, with respect to the Lesher Center and Center REP especially, has been greatly diminished," the staff report says.

With the vast majority of the work for the city's arts programs being done by the advisory councils, DRAA and staff, the Arts Commission is caught in the middle with "very little meaningful work to do," the staff report said.

This "frustrating" situation has led the City Council to ask the commission to take another look how policy is made for the city's arts programs and what kind of structure would be "more effective for the programs and the community."