One of the values of the archive section of eyeonmiami is both to educate readers who may find subjects of interest and want to look through the trail of blog posts on a particular subject, and another value is to show how our views meet up with reality. I'm perfectly willing to be proven wrong. Now, the Herald reports, "Top concert group asks Arsht Center for help".
"Struggling to pay more than $2 million in debts and stop a dwindling subscriber base, leaders of the Concert Association of Florida--the major local presenter of classical music and dance--have proposed that the performing arts center take over the group's administrative operations.
So: to the budget for a performing arts center we could not afford and that fewer people want, now add the funding request for operating expenses of performing arts organizations whose budgets were unrealistic and not properly vetted by an audit before the county commission committed $500 million to the project. (We're STILL waiting for the Herald story on that. How hard could it be, to dig up the original projections for performance demand on which the decision to invest was based? If there are any PAC insiders who would like to mail us a copy, we would be very pleased to post a condensed version and narrative on our blog.)
If voters who support the unreformable majority of the county commission don't find enough objectionable in this story, in a separate article in the paper today on the county budget crisis--due to crashing housing markets and tax base that the county commissioners' campaign contributors helped unleash here and everywhere--county officials suggest that widespread cuts will be made, including to the numerous small charitable organizations supported by the county.
If there is an answer and way to correct the dwindling subscriber base to the major local presenter of classical music and dance, it is by cultivating local audiences: that has to happen by funding the arts programs of the public schools-- right?-- and supporting local performance groups that have been chronically short of funding for decades. (Just imagine how far $500 million would have gone, to developing new and young audiences for the arts, where they live.)
If I read the Herald correctly, local performing organizations will now be competing for scarce county dollars with an unsustainable platform for performances and the Performing Arsht Center.
To the dunderheads who created and support this fiasco: YOU pay for it. YOU pay for the new Museums and Baseball Stadium. Enough said.
2 comments:
Close it down.
I am "art uncle" to emerging artists and art students in miami. They consider me the example of how one can make a living with fine arts. But it has become increasingly difficult to mentor, to express and sustain a realistic and optimistic view of the visual and performance art industries when the prospects for support are so dim. I can't lie to them, reality bites.
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