Analysis: After intense coverage of Fresno’s Measure P, TMR’s reporter offers his take on how the arts grants process needs a better rollout in 2025 and beyond
By Doug Hoagland
The first-ever Measure P arts grants are finally in the hands of organizations and artists — but what a messy process it was at times. Unnecessarily messy, from my observer’s seat. The problems: poor communication, loosening of standards and unmet responsibilities.
Why bring this up now? It’s because Measure P is a multi-year show involving a lot of money from folks like you and me. Millions of taxpayers’ dollars – via a ⅜-cent increase in the sales tax – are available to spend over 30 years to boost parks and arts in Fresno. So for several big reasons – fiduciary responsibility, public trust, accountability – Measure P arts grants need a better rollout in 2025 and beyond. The city’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission will get an early start on the 2025 grants program when it meets at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 30, at Fresno City Hall.
OK, down to details about 2024, which necessarily involves looking back and highlighting where the public – in my opinion – could have been better served.
POOR COMMUNICATION
In June, the process of getting $8.7 million in Measure P money to nearly 100 successful grant applicants (also known as grantees) hit a big snag. The Fresno Arts Council, which runs the grants program, had not provided all required information on grantees to the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission. So the Commission – which had voted in May to award the grants – was required to vote again. The public (including me) would eventually learn about all of this.
But at the June 17 meeting of the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission, there was some serious head scratching going on because none of the officials who knew the score spoke about the reality of the Arts Council’s mistake and the necessary remediation.
Instead, Aaron Aguirre, head of the city’s parks department, used language that seemed crafted by an attorney. He spoke about a “procedural issue” with the grants program and a “curing process” requested by the City Attorney’s Office.
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Maybe that Office told Aguirre to stick to a script using the murky legalese words “curing process.” But there was another kind of cure for the confusion that rolled over the public at that meeting: some straight talk.
LOOSENING OF STANDARDS
At the end of March, the Fresno Arts Council received 137 grant applications totaling more than $15.5 million. At that time, officials were talking about awarding from $5 to $9.5 million. So, it was clear there would be winners and losers when the grants were finally awarded.
Wrong.
Nearly everyone ended up a winner: 112 grantees divided up $9.4 million.
But in that process, the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission moved – in football parlance – the goal line for scoring some of the Measure P money. Doing so brought into sharper focus the work of 25 volunteers who had evaluated the grant applications. The volunteers looked at how grant applicants answered weighted questions about projects, cultural equity and inclusion, proposed impact and outcomes, and more. Average scores – based on those evaluations – ranged from a low of 2.25 to 5.76 (6 was the highest possible).
In May, the Commission decided to give money to applicants with scores of 3.5 or above. That translated into the $8.7 million for the nearly 100 applicants.
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 Munro Review is funded in part by the City of Fresno Measure P Expanded Access to Arts and Culture Fund administered by the Fresno Arts Council.
But then the “curing process” made it necessary for the Commission to redo awarding the grant money. So in August, the Commissioners played Santa Claus and lowered the scoring threshold to 3.0, which meant that 13 applicants previously rejected because of lower scores got in on a Measure P bonanza totalling an additional $845,964. (Before the redo, at least one of the 13 had raised legitimate questions about the evaluators, including their knowledge about certain art forms and the precision of their evaluations.)
For anyone keeping track of the numbers, in the end, nine applicants were still denied funding because their scores were below 3.0.
What happened between May and August to account for the lower threshold?
For one thing, Commissioner Jose Leon Barraza – who could never be called a rubber stamp – expressed concern that south Fresno neighborhoods weren’t getting a fair share of Measure P money. In the process, he became a tenacious advocate for small, grass roots arts organizations and fledgling artists in underserved parts of Fresno.
In response, Commissioner Laura Ward heard Barraza’s concern about equity and worked toward a compromise. That compromise eventually led to funding the lower scoring applicants. (Ward also cited support from the arts and business communities for spending more Measure P money in 2024 rather than saving it for allocations in future years.)
However, as with many compromises, bigger issues were left to the future. Barraza seems determined to press for revised grant guidelines that will ensure his vision of funding equity for south Fresno, but he may have trouble getting support from his fellow Commissioners for some of his ideas.
Perhaps more far-reaching was the fact that some lower-scoring applicants got to cash in. Were they less deserving of Measure P money? At one point in the process, that was the Commission’s judgment – until it wasn’t. And could the factors that led to lower scores affect whether those applicants use the Measure P money wisely? We won’t know until all grantees – including those with higher scores – make an accounting in 2025 to the Fresno Arts Council. One thing is certain: Measure P’s reputation in the community will be on the line.
UNMET RESPONSIBILITIES
The nine people on the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission – all appointed by Mayor Jerry Dyer – are volunteers with a variety of professional backgrounds. They necessarily rely on legal guidance from the City Attorney’s Office, and they turn to the city’s parks department for data and other important information. That gives power to both the City Attorney’s Office and the parks department.
But Measure P gives a substantial amount of power to the Commission, and some Commissioners, it would seem, need to find their voices in their roles of representing the public.
Those roles include asking questions and having dialogue with one another. It was a rare moment at a July meeting when Ward, in a measured voice, called out her fellow Commissioners for delays in moving ahead with the grants. She added that the grants were sliding into “bureaucratic quicksand” – and she was right.
Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council, also carries major responsibility. With experience as a former chair of the California Arts Council, she demonstrated savvy know-how in the Measure P saga, whether it was rallying people in the arts community to attend crucial public meetings or leading technical workshops for would-be grant applicants.
Gonzáles Chávez showed humility – and leadership – when she publicly apologized to the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission for the Arts Council’s error that led to the redo vote in August. The consequence of that error was real: Ggrantees received their Measure P money in early September, rather than early July, as originally planned. That gives grantees doing projects two fewer months to complete their work in the required one-year period.
Grantees need the same full explanation as they deal with the Fresno Arts Council. Transparency isn’t always comfortable, but it’s the foundation for trust.
Doug Hoagland has been covering Measure P for The Munro Review for two years.
