Third district candidates put the spotlight on arts, culture funding

The push to succeed the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ most arts-friendly member brought six candidates in the third district race to LACMA on Wednesday for a “Culture and Creativity” forum.

Organized by Arts for LA, a nonprofit advocacy group, the event sought the candidates’ positions on arts-related issues, given that the departing Zev Yaroslavsky is widely seen as an ally of the county’s arts institutions. The election is June 3.

The third district race has proven to be a crowded field, attracting eight candidates. Yaroslavsky’s replacement will play a key role in setting policy and budgets for the county museums, performances spaces and arts programs.

“These are the most powerful supervisors in the country, they govern over 10 million people, so we need to have seasoned legislators who really understand public policy,” said Danielle Brazell, executive director of Arts for L.A. “The key point is making sure every candidate understands the breadth and depth of the arts in building a healthy community.”

Speaking before an audience of more than 300 people including artists, administrators, and other members of the so-called creative economy, candidates John Duran, Doug Fay, Sheila Kuehl, Eric Preven, Bobby Shriver and Pamela Conley Ulich sparred for 90 minutes over questions posed by Franklin J. Gilliam, dean of the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA.

The topics included arts education in public schools, tax allocations for the arts, and the nexus of cultural and industrial projects such as the expanding Metro Rail network and quickly highlighted each candidate’s approach to maintaining and bolstering the county’s status as having more artists and arts organizations per capita in the nation.

West Hollywood City Councilman and business owner Duran stressed the importance of “not waiting for people to come to you, but to bring arts to the people” and the arts as “an economic tool.”

Fay tackled the questions from the perspective of his advocacy work as an environmentalist while expressing concern for the closing of arts venues across the county.

Former state legislator and actress Kuehl focused on her successful record in Sacramento and pushed for a doubling of free tickets and free passes for cultural events around the city, a call that brought a cheer from the audience.

“I would certainly triple that,” joked Preven, TV show consultant, who called for a tougher approach to the problem of runaway movie and television production, which Preven said has led to the loss of 9,000 jobs since 2007.

Former Santa Monica City Councilman and businessman Shriver advocated an embrace of “music of the young,” citing the high demand for recording studios that offer free recordings to aspiring musicians, and highlighted his efforts producing a series of Christmas albums to raise money for the Special Olympics.

Conley Ulich, a lawyer and former mayor of Malibu, called for utilizing the existing network of public libraries as activity centers for urban youth and hubs for arts workshops.

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