Update: In yet another Measure P twist, funds flow to more than a dozen previously rejected grant applicants

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The new spending proposal sets a lower score required to receive taxpayer money generated by Measure P, a 30-year initiative that raises the Fresno sales tax by ⅜ of a cent. Citizen review panels assigned the scores earlier this year after scoring grant applications. Nine applicants would still be shut out of the additional funding because their applications have scores below the new lower cutoff.

The new spending proposal comes from the Commission’s Cultural Arts subcommittee, composed of Commissioners Laura Ward and Scott Miller, in partnership with the Fresno Arts Council, Ward said. In a text to The Munro Review, Ward explained the reasoning behind the proposal. She said that members of the arts and business communities expressed support for spending more available Measure P money now rather than saving it for allocations in future years.

Successful applicants were first scheduled to receive Measure P money in July, but a subsequent chain of events pushed that date to early September. 

Now the questions arise: will the nine applicants excluded from the expanded allocation have a right to appeal, and if so, would that cause further delay in the distribution of Measure P money? 

The answer to both questions is “no,” said Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council. She did not say whether the City Attorney’s Office had been consulted.

The Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission in May received funding recommendations from the Cultural Arts subcommittee. Those recommendations were based on the average score that each application received from the citizen review panels. Scores reflected how the applicants answered four to six questions, including how their use of Measure P money would impact the community. 

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Under the system used by the Cultural Arts subcommittee in the spring,  applicants who scored from 3.5 to a possible high of 6 were recommended to receive Measure P money. The subcommittee chose the 3.5 level as the cutoff for funding so there would be money left for applicants who were initially rejected and then successfully appealed to the Commission, Ward said.

The Commission voted in favor of the funding recommendations using the 3.5 cutoff at the May meeting.

Now the subcommittee proposes a newer, more generous cutoff score of  3.0, rather than 3.5. The following events led up to that decision.

The original timeline for the grants was disrupted in June when it was revealed that the Arts Council had made a mistake in not providing the Commission with all the information required by its contract with the city. As a result, the Commission had to vote again on giving $8.6 million to the more than 70 grantees, but that vote was put off to July. More controversy arose because Commissioner Jose Leon Barraza raised questions about whether south Fresno neighborhoods would receive equal benefit from the recommended Measure P grants.

In July, the Commission cast affirmative votes for the original 70 grantees. But another funding proposal came before the commissioners at that meeting. In an apparent effort to address Barraza’s concerns and to provide funding to new emerging arts organizations that reflect Fresno’s diversity, Ward and Miller proposed giving Measure P money to six applicants that received average scores above 3.0 and below the previous cutoff of  3.5. The Commission didn’t vote on the new proposal but carried it over to the Aug. 19 meeting. 

Now, on the eve of that meeting, the Cultural Arts subcommittee has expanded the proposal to include not only the six applicants in the emerging category, but seven additional, more established applicants who have longer track records and bigger budgets than the emerging organizations. The applications of those seven had average scores above 3.0 and below the previous cutoff of 3.5. One applicant, Mighty Community Advocacy, is listed in both the established and emerging categories because grant guidelines provided some flexibility.

New Measure P grants

The 13 applicants who would receive Measure P money under the new proposal are broken into the following categories, according to a city document. Click on the name of the category to be taken to a spreadsheet that lists scores given by citizen review panels.

Established organizations, general operating support:

Another Level Training Academy
Arts Enrichment For All
BreakBox Thought Collective
Saint Rest Community Economic Development Corporation
Care Fresno Inc.

Established organizations, project specific support

Mighty Community Advocacy
Dulce Upfront (Samuel Contreras)
Art of Life Cancer Foundation

Emerging organizations, general support

Hella Fresno
Iranian Culture and Art Club of Fresno
Mighty Community Advocacy

Emerging organizations, project specific support

Choummaly Keodara
The Dream Again Project
Reading and Beyond