Downtown Fresno Partnership and Laotian dance group push back against Fresno Arts Council over Measure P grants

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Meanwhile, an attorney for the Downtown Fresno Partnership said the organization’s “procedural due process rights” had been violated, and he called on the city to take corrective action.

Another grant applicant – one of Fresno’s oldest arts organizations – lost out on the chance for Measure P money because of missed communication with the Fresno Arts Council, which is paid by the city to run the Measure P arts grants program. The Philip Lorenz International Keyboard Concerts series asked for $25,000 but received no funding.

The problems encountered by the Downtown Fresno Partnership and Keyboard Concerts publicly surfaced when the Arts Council announced in May that more than 70 applicants were recommended to receive grants totaling $8.7 million. The city’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission, which oversees Measure P, approved grant recommendations at a public hearing on May 20.

The grants fell into two general categories: specific projects – like the Downtown Partnership’s mural project – and general operating support. The latter is for such expenses as rent, utilities and staff salaries. The Downtown Partnership did not apply for an operating grant.

Back and forth

Here is a timeline of the back and forth between the Downtown Partnership and the Arts Council.

On March 25, Elliott Balch, president and chief executive officer of the Downtown Partnership, submitted the six grant applications totaling $878,286. Asked about the size of that amount, Balch told The Munro Review that downtown is an “important cultural landscape” and working on its behalf puts the Downtown Partnership in a different position from other organizations. “I don’t think we’re quite the same . . . We’re not doing things that are just about the Downtown Partnership. We are a backbone – working with other event organizers, helping them be successful. It’s us playing a role in the public realm, making something that’s happening, happen better.”

The five Downtown Partnership applications that were ultimately rejected asked for the following:

• $200,000 to manage Fulton Street during Art Hop, which brings about 15,000 people to that area of downtown on the first Thursday of each month. With the grant, the Downtown Partnership said it would organize existing vendors and add more while seeking additional venues for visual arts and music and add performing arts to the mix.

• $199,500 to enhance two existing events and sponsor two new events. The former are the annual Downtown Christmas Parade and Fiestas Patrias, which celebrates the independence of Mexico and seven other Latin American nations. The latter are an event centered on agriculture workers near Cinco de Mayo and a community event focused on the African-American community.

• $184,800 for an interactive public art installation on the spiral parking garage on Fulton and Inyo streets, facing the Brewery District. The installation would have moving pieces, and people could change colors on the structure using their phones.

• $154,000 for a holiday ice rink at Fulton and Mariposa streets for 33 days in December 2024 and January 2025. Artists and artisan vendors also would be recruited, and holiday celebrations of Fresno’s diverse cultures could be incorporated into the 33 days.

• $55,000 for mini grants to independent event organizers who the Downtown Fresno Partnership often currently assist. These organizers sometimes have deep connections to specific groups in Fresno – such as young African Americans or the LGBTQ+ community – and the mini grants could benefit their events.

On March 25, a three-month application period closed; nonprofit arts organizations and individual artists with recognized fiscal sponsors had submitted 137 grant applications.

On April 12, Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council, emailed Balch that his multiple applications would not be accepted.

On May 6, Kenneth J. Price, an attorney for the Downtown Partnership, sent a letter to City Attorney Andrew Janz stating, “There are legal considerations at issue here.” Price said the Downtown Partnership’s “procedural due process” had been violated because the Arts Council – on behalf of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission – had imposed a limitation on project applications that does not exist in grant guidelines approved by the Fresno City Council and which the Downtown Partnership knew nothing about.

“The Fresno City Council delegated implementation of the grant program to [the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission and the Fresno Arts Council], but certainly expected that the Council-approved guidelines would govern the grant-making process,” Price wrote in his letter. “From what we can see, this new prohibition was never considered by the Fresno City Council.”

Recent Measure P coverage:
MEASURE P GRANT RECOMMENDATIONS APPROVED BY FRESNO CITY COMMISSION
And: AS SELECTION PROCESS FOR MEASURE P GRANTS BEGINS, THE MUNRO REVIEW ASKS FOR OPENNESS
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?

In his letter, Price reminded Janz that the Arts Council is administering city funds in the form of Measure P tax dollars and that the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission is a city-appointed Commission. “We are therefore asking your assistance to ascertain some clear bias, if any, for limiting the number of grant applications an organization may submit,” Price wrote. If no such limitation exists, “we request that the City insist” that the Downtown Partnership’s six applications “be considered on their merits.”

Janz did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

In his May 6 letter, Price also provided details on what happened after Gonzáles Chávez told Balch he could not submit multiple project applications. When Balch “repeatedly requested” where such a rule exists, Gonzáles Chávez told him the grant guidelines “were clear.” But Balch received no citation in the guidelines.

Price said Gonzáles Chávez gave Balch the option of finding other applicants to submit some of the grant applications and that Balch attempted to do so. But “given the complexity and lack of guidance,” the Downtown Partnership could not meet “the artificial deadline.”

On May 17, the Fresno Arts Council publicly announced which applicants were recommended for funding. Most successful applicants received 75% to 90% of what they requested. Ten received 100%, while 21 received no grant money. The winners celebrated, and the losers had to consider whether to submit an appeal with the Arts Council for consideration by the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission.

On May 23, Balch submitted an appeal in an email to Gonzáles Chávez.

On May 30, The Munro Review contacted Gonzáles Chávez about that email. She said she had received it, but when asked if it represented an appeal, she said, “There needs to be a basis for the appeal. One of his projects was eligible and funded . . . The others were not eligible.”

Then, The Munro Review asked Gonzáles Chávez to quote the language in the grant guidelines that says each applicant can submit only one project application.

She replied: “The guidelines are silent on that point.”

She declined further comment.

Balch was unaware of the reversal by Gonzáles Chávez until contacted by The Munro Review on May 30. After considering the news, he said: “Then clearly, all six [applications] are eligible under the guidelines. It’s pretty simple.”

On May 31, Balch said he had asked Gonzáles Chávez for a meeting to discuss how to move forward, but “​​she politely indicated she’s too busy until after [the grants] process has ended.”

That end could come on June 17 when the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission considers the appeals coming through the Arts Council. Applicants who might appeal either didn’t receive funding or disagree with how their funding was handled, Commissioner Laura Ward said at a Commision meeting on May 29. The Commission might then recommend new “quick grants” for applicants whose grant proposals meet the goals of the city’s Cultural Arts Plan provided that sufficient Measure P money is available, Ward added.

Balch is sanguine about the chances that his five rejected applications will get a chance at Measure P funding. “With any luck, we’ll change the circumstances,” he said.

No grant for Keyboard Concerts

Elsewhere on the Measure P front, The Philip Lorenz International Keyboard Concerts series asked for $25,000 but received no funding.

A missing tax form was the reason, said artistic director Andreas Werz.

A representative of the organization attached a standard 1099 tax form to the digital application but forgot to include a document called an IRS determination letter.

Werz doesn’t dispute the application was incomplete, but he was disappointed that Keyboard was not informed of the omission in time to correct it, considering the application had been turned in well before the deadline. Some grant applicants received emails from the Fresno Arts Council alerting them of missing documents or incomplete information. They were given a 48-hour deadline to respond.

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The Keyboard series never received that email, Werz said. Keyboard staff regularly checked the status of the application online leading up to the deadline but evidently missed the window of time that included the 48-hour notification.

“The warning process needs to be applied fairly and uniformly,” Werz said.

The loss stings, especially considering how Keyboard suffered through some very lean financial years.

“We’re going to survive, but I see how much other organizations are going to receive … Wow,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that this happened to such a long-standing organization.”

Keyboard is in its 52nd season. Nearly every world-class concert pianist in the past five decades has visited Fresno because of the series. In the upcoming 2024-25 season, guest artists include Israeli-American pianist Yefim Bronfman, Garrick Ohlsson (the only American to ever win a gold medal in the International Chopin Piano Competition), and the Mexican pianist Mauricio Nader, widely considered to be one of the country’s best concert pianists.

In response to a Keyboard inquiry, Gonzáles Chávez of the Fresno Arts Council replied in an email: “I am so sorry that Keyboard Concerts did not submit an eligible application. When deficiencies in the application were noted, we provided a grace period to submit missing documents. This was a courtesy extended in this first year of funding not a requirement. When no response was received the application was determined ineligible and not forwarded to the panel for review.”

She added that funding will be available next year.

Laotian dance group appeals

Meanwhile, The Munro Review has learned that one applicant whose grant application was considered but recommended for no funding has appealed that decision. Choummaly Keodora had requested $35,000 in project specific support for emerging organizations.

She teaches and leads a youth Laotian dance group, Nadtasin Lao Lanxang, and, she said, the group performs throughout Fresno at Laotian cultural events, at schools and at events hosted by other racial and ethnic groups.

Why Keodara received no funding is difficult to understand given language in the Measure P ordinance, said Amy Kitchener, executive director of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, a statewide program headquartered in Fresno that served as a fiscal sponsor for Keodara. That language states: “grants . . . shall prioritize organizations and programs that support and expand diverse or youth engagement and equity.”

Kitchener is seeking information from the Fresno Arts Council about the composition of the volunteer panel that reviewed and scored Keodara’s application.

Donald Munro, publisher of The Munro Review, contributed to this story.

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.