As selection process for Measure P grants begins, The Munro Review asks for complete transparency

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She added: “We’re concerned that applicants might try to influence the selection process. We want to make sure the integrity of the process is upheld.”

As to not disclosing the names of panelists, Ward said: “We certainly do not want anybody to contact panelists . . . [the] goal is to maintain the independence of the process.”

Regarding The Munro Review, the website acknowledged in an article it published on March 20 that it intended to apply for a Measure P grant. Ward said she learned that information by reading the article. “My concern is that The Munro Review is an applicant in the current round of Measure P art grants and that they might be asking for the names of who they are competing against for a reason potentially that’s related to their own application. So I think as a current applicant, it is something we especially want to be sensitive about.”

Recent Measure P stories: AS GRANTS DEADLINE RAPIDLY APPROACHES, INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS WORRY ABOUT GETTING LEFT BEHIND
And: WITH AN OCEAN OF TAXPAYER MONEY AVAILABLE, MEASURE P ARTS FUNDING IS SURE TO RAISE COMPETITION AND QUESTIONS
And: GROWING PAINS: IS FRESNO CITY COUNCIL MICROMANAGING MEASURE P ARTS FUNDING?

Asked what The Munro Review might do if it knew the identities of its competitors, Ward said, “Right now I don’t – and nobody knows – who the panel reviewers are except for members of the Arts Council. But much as I want to make sure that the panelists are able to retain their independence during the process, I want to make sure that applicants don’t start pressuring the Arts Council around the process.”

In response, Donald Munro, publisher of The Munro Review, issued the following statement:

“Lest anyone forget, the money that the city is preparing to disburse comes directly from the pockets of taxpayers, and those taxpayers deserve to know everything about the process. Anyone who applies for this public money or volunteers to help dole it out should know that every step will be done in the disinfecting gaze of the public. There is no excuse for keeping any identities involved ‘private,’ and anyone who objects to public scrutiny should simply choose not to participate. The Munro Review will do everything it can to assure this openness, including requesting public records and invoking the State of California’s expansive open meeting laws.”

In the spirit of such disclosure, Munro detailed The Munro Review’s Measure P grant request of $26,780. It consists of:

• $7,000 to pay freelance writer Doug Hoagland for continuing coverage of Measure P.

• $4,000 to pay freelance writer Heather Parish for continuing coverage of local theater and arts.

• $9,900 to compensate the Community Media Access Collaborative for the cost of a producer, crew and host to make “The Munro Review on CMAC” (including $4,950 to compensate Munro for his writing and hosting duties).

• $2,880 to begin a pilot internship program.

• $3,000 for a website redesign and upgrade.

Munro’s fiscal sponsor is CMAC. “The Munro Review on CMAC,” a monthly arts talk show now in its sixth year, is produced there.

Munro continued:

“As for the suggestion that the information about applicants and panelists is being requested to somehow individually benefit The Munro Review, or that the information in general could be used to pressure the adjudicators, I’m troubled that a member of the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission went so dark so fast. This is about public openness. Let’s keep the discussion at a higher level.”

Ward said on April 5 that neither she nor Miller knows the identities of the 137 applicants (other than The Munro Review). The Fresno Arts Council has the complete list. The decision to withhold the names of all applicants is in keeping with best practices of the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, Ward added.

A spokesperson for the California Arts Council said the agency doesn’t disclose a list of all grant applicants as applications are reviewed, but that information is available through a Public Records Act request once the window for grant applications has closed. The California Arts Council discloses the names of people who evaluate grant proposals after grants are awarded, the spokesperson said. “It’s done in a spirit of transparency,” the spokesperson said. The NEA only publicly shares the names of applicants that are approved for funding, a spokesperson said.

In a related note, Ward said the Fresno City Attorney’s Office confirmed to her that the city doesn’t “typically” release information about grant applicants.

In terms of the people making the scoring decisions, Ward said she hopes the panelists – while not identified by name – will eventually be publicly described by their artistic pursuit to show the Cultural Arts Committee’s commitment to a “diversity of perspectives” on the panels.

In response, Munro noted that the Fresno arts community is relatively small and that relationships between members of that community can be complicated. Public disclosure can be another way of ensuring that conflicts of interest are identified – particularly when some grants will involve hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Munro also questioned whether keeping the identities of panelists secret could be maintained. “People talk,” he said. “Will panelists be required to take an oath of silence? Word will get out, particularly among those who are better connected. It’s better to have everything out in the open from the beginning instead of meeting behind closed doors.”

The Munro Review has no paywall but is financially supported by readers who believe in its non-profit mission of bringing professional arts journalism to the central San Joaquin Valley. You can help by signing up for a monthly recurring paid membership or make a one-time donation of as little as $3. All memberships and donations are tax-deductible.

The lack of transparency is the latest issue to muddy the history of Measure P, a 30-year, ⅜-cent sales tax increase that Fresno voters approved in November 2018 to benefit parks and arts. Since then, Fresno’s arts community has witnessed legal battles, political infighting and bureaucratic wrangling that may have left even optimists wondering whether the initiative would ever amount to more than talk.

At this juncture, the key players in the grants process are the Fresno Arts Council, which is overseeing the administrative work of the process, and the Cultural Arts Committee.

A series of deadline dates have driven the process since the beginning of 2024, when a three-month application period opened. Those dates are:

• March 25, when grant applications were due. A “small pool” of applicants submitted incomplete paperwork and they may receive a short grace period to provide missing information, Ward said on April 5. Others applicants face disqualification for more serious issues, such as not being registered as a 501c3 nonprofit in California or not doing their primary business in the city of Fresno, according to Lilia González Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council.

• April 1 was the deadline for community members to apply to the Fresno Arts Council to serve on the panels reviewing and scoring the grant applications. On its Facebook page, the Council said panelists should be “artists, culture bearers, community leaders, arts/culture staff, board members, administrators, and more.” Panelists cannot serve on the board or work for an organization applying for a grant in this round.

• April-May (unspecified dates): The panels will review and score grant applications based on criteria developed by the Fresno Arts Council and included in guidelines approved by the Fresno City Council. The panels will make funding recommendations based on those scores, and those recommendations will go to the Cultural Arts Committee, which will send them on to the entire Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission.

• May (unspecified date): The Commission will meet in public to review the grant recommendations and decide to accept or not accept them, according to Ward. At this point, the public would learn the identities of successful applicants. Ward said the City Attorney’s Office will advise whether the names of all applicants – which would include unsuccessful ones – could be released at this point.

• June (unspecified date): The Fresno City Council would possibly review the recommendations.

As the grants process grinds along, it’s currently unclear how much Measure P money will actually be awarded in 2024. The Fresno City Council budgeted $9.5 million, but González Chávez and others have spoken about awarding $5 million, which is how much money Measure P is projected to collect annually for arts grants in the years ahead. The Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission will decide whether it’s $5 million, $9.5 million or some figure in between in 2024. The Commission will assess community needs in making that decision, Ward said. “I think if we receive a recommendation not to award a significant amount of the available funding, that recommendation probably will not be accepted without a thorough discussion.”

The Commission is “very sensitive” to the fact that Measure P money for the arts is “much anticipated and long-awaited,” Ward said. “So we’re very interested in seeing it get out into the community and start funding some really exciting things.

Doug Hoagland is a freelance writer in Fresno. He spent 40 years working at Valley papers, including 30 years at The Fresno Bee. The first play he saw was a 1968 production of “Show Boat” at McLane High School.