CANO’s Mayoral Platform
CULTURAL PLATFORM FOR CREATIVE ALLIANCE OF NEW ORLEANS
Submitted by Advocacy Committee of CANO
January 9, 2010
1. Reinstitute and re-fund the Mayor’s Office of Tourism, Arts, and Entertainment that was dismantled after Katrina or create a new office or department in city government responsible for overseeing cultural programming and budgeting. This office or department would be expected to work closely with existing citywide and more limited focus arts organizations such as the Arts Council of New Orleans, Jazz and Heritage Festival, university arts departments, neighborhood arts organizations and other non profit and for profit arts organizations and entities. The office or department should address all creative disciplines.
2. Develop a dedicated funding source for cultural programming, support for cultural entities, development of cultural venues and marketing programs.
- Better identify and secure financial resources for cultural development, education, venue and workforce development from national non-profit, corporate and public financial sources
- Support development of a joint grant writing imitative to help smaller cultural entities without development staffs to identify, apply for and secure funding
3. Create a special “desk” or focus area within the city’s economic development department, office or public/private partnership to raise the creative economy to a status reflecting studies at the state, national and local level that list the cultural sector as one of four leading emerging industry areas of the city, region and state. Add a representative of the cultural/creative sector to the economic development public/private partnership board.
4. Establish transparent and inclusive process of interacting with cultural interests in the city on policy, program, budgetary and contractual decision making. The city’s new cultural affairs office or department will institute a horizontal coordinating process to make sure key funding sources in all departments that might support cultural programming are identified and explored, including such key funding sources as HUD, CDBG, stimulus and educational funding.
5. Implement a thorough data collection project to establish the actual scope of the creative sector in terms of functioning artists, performers, designers and producers, as well as a complete inventory of venues, educational, business and career training programs. Such a study should also include a needs-analysis of our creative and cultural professionals, educators, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.
6. Safeguard New Orleans’ cultural heritage and invest in our cultural and creative practitioners and economy by supporting arts and cultural education and professional development for New Orleans’ Youth
- Support the inclusion of arts and cultural education in curricula of primary schools, accompanied by career counseling for young creatives
- Support after school enrichment education and programming
- Support local secondary education programs to enable entrepreneurship and rewarding career development in local creative and cultural practitioners and industries
- Conduct survey to determine the full scope of existing and needed arts education programming and needs
7. Invest in New Orleans’ economic competitiveness in national and global markets through marketing strategies, programs and financing that better promote the cultural resources, talent and products of New Orleans
- Develop directory of creative professionals and producers similar to Off-Beat music directory
8. Invest in creative and cultural professionals, entrepreneurs, and small businesses by supporting programs that develop our creative workforce capacity, professional development and business capacity through educational institutions and support for other independent programming
9. Enable the establishment of neighborhood-based cultural centers which serve as needed performance and exhibition venues, studios, and business incubator spaces complete with business capacity and workforce development programming, and funding for marketing local cultural products. Develop neighborhood based cultural and cultural commerce capacity to drive neighborhood level economic development, citywide enhancement of cultural programming, and neighborhood revitalization.
- Build on and expand the cultural product districts to include financing for marketing initiatives, and creation of centers for the presentation and sale of creative productions, exhibitions and products
- Dedicate funding for cultural programming and events on a neighborhood or planning district basis, requiring cooperative efforts between cultural, neighborhood, tourism, and business development entities on such programming
- Encourage cultural leadership and entities participation in neighborhood participation institutions to be developed to implement and monitor the approved official master plan for the city.
10. Facilitate the improvement of interface between cultural industries with the hospitality and tourism industries
- Re-create an Arts Tourism Partnership program or process
- Dedicate a portion of hospitality industry funding for cultural programming and marketing
11. Address healthcare and housing needs of New Orleans’ creative and cultural community
- Support and expand on the Musician’s Clinic and Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation Healthcare Initiatives, and encourage inclusion of all cultural and creative workers” (see: http://www.neworleansmusiciansclinic.org/, http://www.culturaleconomy.org/index.php?topic=healthcare )
- work toward solutions for affordable housing for all cultural and creative professionals
- Consider an aggressive homesteading program that would address blighted housing through a cultural “Section 8” like program to award ownership of residential properties that are not demolition candidates, nor market rate housing to creative producers with conditional requirements that the new creative producers restore and inhabit the properties with preservation and green techniques
- Consider an innovative “block co-op” concept to award abandoned properties on a city block to a coop of homeowners residing on the block. This is a notion based on the apartment coop model, and on the lot next door program
- Evaluate and provide support to Habitat for Humanity, Sweet Home New Orleans and other existing housing programs that could benefit the creative community
- Restoration of cultural programming in schools, or financial support and coordination of after school programming.
12. Facilitate the integration of new cultural entrepreneurs into the City’s economy and cultural community
