letter to Orem City Council

If you live in Utah Valley, you might be interested in this letter I wrote to Mayor Washburn and the city council. I don't think area residents are aware of this proposal that the city council is considering. As a friend of SCERA, I think it will have a negative impact on SCERA if passed.

Dear Mayor Washburn and Council Members:

I appreciate the opportunity we had a couple of weeks ago to meet with you, Mayor Washburn, along with council members Mark Seastrand and Margaret Black and council members-elect Brent Sumner and Mary Street. It was a good chance to sit down and share information and to talk about concerns we at SCERA have with the proposed Center for the Arts and Story. It was enlightening to hear the concerns city leaders have with SCERA and to find out other concerns that have been voiced to city leaders about SCERA scheduling and space availability. It seems to me that many of those concerns have resulted from poor communication and from old preconceived notions and biases that have plagued SCERA for many years. Whether these concerns are real or imagined, I hope that we can continue to have an ongoing interchange of information and ideas to help SCERA succeed as the Cultural Arts arm of Orem City as outlined in the agreement of 1983. That is an essential part of this whole situation that needs to be addressed as we discussed in the meeting. As we continue to strive to improve our image and the services we offer to the citizens of Orem, it is critical that we have the support of our city leaders.

I voiced some of my concerns at the meeting, but I wanted to put those concerns in writing and to distribute them to a wider audience, including all members of the City Council who will be voting on this proposal.

As I mentioned in the meeting, I tend to look at this proposal rather simply. I wonder why the city leaders would be considering a proposal to build a center for the Arts and Story at the City Center when the SCERA center for the Arts already exists a mere eight blocks away from the site of the proposed addition. In these austere times, do we really need two centers for the Arts in our community in such close proximity? Why city leaders would be seriously considering an additional center for the arts in Orem is baffling to me and many others. I don’t think that the citizens of Orem will look favorably on this use of taxpayer funds and, if left to them, I seriously doubt that they would vote to build or expand the library/story/arts center. The citizens need to be properly informed of this proposal. Unfortunately, the decision isn’t left to the voters, it’s left to the city council. Based on the discussion a few weeks ago, it seems like an argument was made by city leaders that we need more performing arts space in our city. Is this determination actually based on fact or on hearsay? Since the decision to build more space is supposedly to accommodate more performing arts requests, why isn’t a more thorough study done of the existing space and the use of that space first?

The decision to build a new center for the Arts and Story would make it necessary for SCERA to compete against the city for donations, for programming, and for sponsorships. Let me illustrate:

You mentioned in the meeting and again in the newspaper article last week that the city had a $1.5 million dollar commitment to build the new building. Karen Ashton’s (and other’s) donations are generous and I congratulate her/them for their philanthropy. However, why would that $1.5 million dollars then pull another proposed $6 to $13 million in future contributions into a center for the Arts and Story when those same community contributions are needed at the SCERA Center for the Arts? With all due respect to the donors, why would $1.5 million hold so much sway? Why would the story telling festival, which has been in existence for 20 years, trump all other arts programs with its multimillion dollar price tag, especially an existing arts center and program at SCERA that have been a going concern for more than 75 years? Don’t we need to honor our history and our past and all the donors who have contributed to the building of SCERA over all those years by protecting that legacy? We are in fact competing for the same community donors to accomplish our goals at SCERA. Since there aren’t unlimited resources in our community, I feel that those donations could be coming our way when in fact they would be going to support a new city arts building. This doesn’t make any sense to me.

We can’t compete against the city and its resources for funding. If city leaders authorize the building of this center, then various arts groups will surely use it for their productions. Why would they come to SCERA to rent space when they could use the space at the new proposed center free of charge? Since the new center would be staffed by library paid personnel, heated by tax dollars, and lighted by tax dollars, there would be very little overhead. At SCERA, we must pay our staff, pay our own light bill and so forth. Why would patrons pay to come to SCERA when they are offered an event free of charge at the proposed center?

If the CARE tax will pay for the remainder of the new building, is this really the brick and mortar building the city wants to build and is the best location for such a building adjacent to or connected to the library? I suspect that the city council is anxious to build something tangible with the CARE tax dollars they have been accumulating and to have a visual brick and mortar building as evidence to Orem residents of good use of CARE tax dollars. Why not build it on or near the SCERA center for the Arts? This idea should be more fully explored which could unite an Arts district for the city. Why not build on the established arts center what we already have? I know the city is limited in building on SCERA-owned property, but why not build near it in the same area? This concept was discussed as part of the General Plan. Is it still part of the General Plan? Why not follow the recommendations of the AMS Study and truly explore the possibilities of building a structure that will complement the 75 year-old city icon that is SCERA, and add to its long tradition of providing arts and entertainment in our fine city?

If the city decides to only hold story and multi-use civic and library events in the proposed new building, then why would CARE tax dollars be used to build a building for civic use events? Why would CARE dollars that were designated for ARTS programs be used for civic uses? It seems like an unwise allocation of arts tax dollars for such an expensive multi-use civic building when those dollars are needed and were designated when the CARE tax passed for use in the community for the arts. We may never get this chance again to build something with taxpayer funding that will benefit the ARTS. Please be judicious with these precious dollars and make sure they are used for the purpose for which they were intended that will benefit the larger good of promoting the arts in our community.

It would surely muddy the waters in our community and confuse people as to what is going on in regard to the arts if this proposed center were built. Would there be rules or guidelines established to determine what could be performed at the city center and what could be performed at the SCERA Center for the Arts? Who would make these determinations? Would it be determined that only “story-type” events could be held at the library and that all others could be done at SCERA? It would surely boil down to money. What could be done free of charge and what could be done for a price? How would SCERA compete against “free of charge” or “minimal charge” productions done at the city center? Even small productions would chip away at our financial base. Why were all the arts organizations in Orem surveyed if the city didn’t intend to offer dance, drama, music and story at the proposed center in the future? Now an expectation has been established with those small arts programs that free or low cost space will be available to them at the proposed center. This will undoubtedly negatively impact SCERA.

After expressing this list of concerns, I do have some proposals and suggestions! I believe we need to keep the discussion going between city leaders and SCERA. Please don’t be too hasty to make a decision now in the first part of this new year. What’s the rush? As you know, this is an important issue that has long-term implications. I suggest the following:

*Send a committee to meet with SCERA staff and board members on a regular basis to discuss concerns and problems. I believe that the board is more than willing to address concerns that are brought to them by city leaders and others. They are open to suggestions and concerns and we will act on them within reason.

*Reinstate a city council member as a member of the SCERA board. I believe it is important to have this ongoing interchange.

*SCERA decision makers can look at programming needs (that generate revenue we need to survive) and find more time and space to make available to smaller community arts programs so that they can use their CARE dollars to rent space from SCERA.

*Work with city leaders, library staff and the storytelling organizers to coordinate more storytelling events at SCERA during the time of the festival and during the entire year. Look for ways to use the SCERA Park, the SCERA shell and possibly Theater I and Theater II inside SCERA for events that would be scheduled in advance. Can’t we cooperate and work together all year long?

*Continue to work toward getting out of the movie business at SCERA and more into the performing arts business. Continue to make plans to convert Theater I into a full scale performing arts theater for our community. Thanks to the generous support of XANGO and the Noorda Foundation, great progress has been made and SCERA has been upgraded, expanded and improved. Their vision, support and generosity have been awesome. Give us a few more years to raise the money needed to finish this conversion, and it won’t cost the city of Orem anything.

*Consider moving the Orem Heritage museum into an adjoining building of its own and free up that space for smaller groups to rent for performances, practices or community gatherings – maybe even build a new building using CARE tax dollars to house the museum and/or a veteran’s museum.

*Fully explore with professional planners the possibility of making the area surrounding SCERA into the cultural arts district of our city. In my opinion, cultural arts should be centered around SCERA, not the library.

I’ve seen a lot of ups and downs at SCERA. Right now SCERA is up, but sponsorships are down. We are in a precarious position in certain ways. SCERA is making its way, but I sincerely fear for its future if this proposed city arts center is built. If we don’t succeed in the ensuing years, quite literally, one of our options would be to come to the city council at some point and turn over the keys to the SCERA Center for the Arts to the city. Then the city of Orem would have two centers for the Arts, eight blocks apart and I imagine that the citizens would be very displeased with that state of affairs. I would think that it would be in the city’s best interest to do everything it could to see SCERA succeed as a non-profit organization without building another structure that will compete against it.