Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

a n d p u b l i c f u n d i n g

<--Return to
Index of information about Esperanza's Funding Cut

Debate Over Arts Funding Embroils San Antonio
The New York Times
Thursday, September 11, 1997

by Judith H. Dobrzynski

It may not be as big as the Alamo, but another important battle will take place in San Antonio today, when the city council decides whether public money will be used to finance the arts. At stake is the fate of the city's Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs, which annually provides about $2.7 million in grants to 39 cultural organizations, from the San Antonio Symphony to urban mural projects.

The department also gives money to the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, whose sponsorship of a gay and lesbian film festival helped provoke the financing dispute. "I don't have a problem if they promote that," said Robert Marbut, a city councilman leading the fight against public arts financing. "But that doesn't mean taxpayers have to pay it."

So far this year similar battles have also erupted in Charlotte, N.C., Greensboro, N.C., Anchorage, and Jackson Hole, Wyo.

As with the fights in those cities, the standoff in San Antonio pits proponents of public arts financing, who cast themselves as defenders of free expression, against opponents of financing, who say public money should not be used to pay for art that is offensive or that has a political or cultural agenda.

"It's an attack on arts funding overall, the tricking down of the controversy surrounding the National Endowment for the Arts" said Eduardo Diaz director of San Antonio's Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs. "These issues have been festering."

For nearly a decade, foes of the endowment in Congress have been trying to kill it, and they have succeeded in nearly halving its budget, to about $100 million. This year, the House of Representatives narrowly voted to disband the endowment, but a Senate committee restored its budget. The full Senate will take up the question in coming weeks.

In San Antonio yesterday, people on both sides of the issue said the budget for the arts and cultural affairs department would be cut, though it was not clear by how much. Howard Peak, San Antonio Mayor, said the cut would probably be 5 to 10 percents and portrayed it largely as the results of a budget squeeze.

"We will reduce the funding for a number of arts program as we will for other programs," he said. "Some people feel we should be spending more money on basic services like streets, and some people feel that no money should be going to the arts at all."

Mr. Peak said that "there are people who would like to get rid of the Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs entirely, but I don't agree."

Mr. Marbut is one of those people. "I'd like the department to die, he said. Calling it "a bastion of special interest" that has not accounted for the effectiveness of its spending, he predicted that the arts and culture budget might be cut by more than 50 percent.

Mr. Marbut is also leading the charge against a city ordinance, passed narrowly last year, that allocated 1 percent of the cost of the city's capital projects to public art, which is usually sculpture. He opposes setting aside money for "paste-on- art."

Mr. Peak, the Mayor, said he opposed the ordinance's eligibility requirements, which exclude design architects and landscape architects. He also objects to its artists' development program.

"It will get reversed in three weeks," said Mr. Marbut. "We have 8 of 11 votes solid, and you need 6 to carry."

Instead, all artistic components of a project will be negotiated in the design process.

This turmoil has stirred up grassroots involvement on both sides. "There's a culture war going on in San Antonio," said Bill FitzGibbons, a sculptor and adjunct professor at Trinity University in San Antonio who helped start a group that calls itself Picasa -- People Involved in Culture and Art in San Antonio -- to defend public money for the arts. Members fear that a cut in the department's budget this year will lead to its demise.

In early August about 100 people attended its organizational meeting, Mr. Fitzgibbons said. A few weeks later, Picasa held a pro-arts candlelight vigil at the San Fernando cathedral that he said attracted about 60 people.

Conservative groups have organized phone campaigns to city council members, and some people have appeared at council meetings protesting Esperanza's programs. A local group, the Christian Pro- Life foundation, is campaigning against the Esperanza grant.

The National Coalition Against Censorship weighed in yesterday with a letter to Mayor Peak. "Denying Esperanza funding because it represents a viewpoint or philosophy that is objectionable to some would be constitutionally suspect," wrote Joan E. Bertin, the executive director.

What do you think? E-mail us at esperanza@esperanzacenter.org.