City must
provide transparency and fiscal responsibility in Noyes space planning, Piven
talks
“The Noyes Cultural Arts Center’s mission is to provide
long- and short-term work and exhibition space to artists and arts
organizations representing all disciplines, cultures and stages of
development. It is dedicated to fostering high quality creative activity that
is diverse and accessible to all.” (Noyes Cultural Arts Center brochure)
The citizens of
Evanston and local arts organizations deserve greater transparency and must be
engaged in the space planning process of the Noyes Cultural Arts Center. The
Center, for years significantly self-supporting financially, risks losing not only its unique artistic community but its financial independence and may become a financial
burden on us, the Evanston taxpayers.
It appears that the City might be
prepared to offer a single tenant a large loan (Piven Theatre, $2 million or more) and
to at least double their space at Noyes Center while almost eliminating their rent – in spite
of Piven’s public financial documents that raise concern over repayment due to their
recent annual $60 – 80k losses. While Piven Theatre’s past and future contributions to
the City of Evanston are many – and truly valued -- the situation does raise
concern about three things:
-
Large sums of taxpayer money committed to a single arts organization
with little or no opportunity yet for discussion offered the Evanston Arts Council, local artists or the public;
-
No public analysis on how a single theater becoming majority tenant
would shift the diversity of the artist community and affect Noyes’ mission to represent
artists of all disciplines, races and cultures;
-
A historically financially self-supporting (even profitable) center
becoming a burden on taxpayers as paying artists choose or are forced to leave and rental
income dries up.
Mayor Tisdahl, City Manager
Bobkiewicz and Aldermen, we ask that you:
1. Step
back and reopen the discussion about the best way to ensure that Noyes
Cultural Arts Center has the funds it needs to repair and maintain its facility;
2. Engage
citizens, the Arts Council, artists and financial experts in the discussion (as
has been done with other City arts projects);
3. Consider
and openly discuss alternative plans – such as giving naming rights, creating an endowment and the existing tenants’
Self-Sustainability Model, which proposes to generate enough revenue to
maintain the building while supporting a breadth of artists working in all
forms of media;
4. Consider
allowing Noyes Center to keep and reinvest its own annual surplus (instead of
moving it to the City’s General Fund).
We look forward to seeing the Noyes Cultural
Arts Center continue its successful tradition as the home to a diverse,
financially viable and self-sustaining community of working artists – what a unique
and vibrant space the City, for decades, has fostered! Thank you for opening the
process to allow the community to have a voice in planning its future.
Recent Comments