By COLIN DABOKOWSKI
Nearly a year ago, Erie County Executive Chris Collins stunned the local cultural community by eliminating funding for more than 30 small and midsized cultural groups.
And on Tuesday in the Western New York Book Arts Center, with the 2011 election less than two months away, Collins declared that controversial move a rousing success.
“It has played out exactly as we said. No one closed their doors, no one shut down their operations,” Collins said. “They have reached out to various foundations, their own boards of directors, and they are all sustaining themselves without county taxpayer support. So I think my decision has proven out to be proper.”
Collins, along with members of his administration and campaign staff, were at the Book Arts Center downtown to announce $300,000 worth of one-time county grants for capital improvements to 13 local cultural organizations, many of which were cut from the county budget last year.
The timing of the announcement during the lead-up to the 2011 election has led some to charge that the release of the funds was an attempt by Collins to salve his administration’s lingering wounds from the public backlash against the cuts.
Shortly after Collins’ Tuesday appearance, Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz, his Democratic opponent in the county executive race, fired off a brief email blasting the grants as a baldly political tactic.
“What he’s doing with the release of this $300,000, he’s acting like he’s Santa Claus with a big sack of cash that just all of a sudden materialized out of thin air,” Poloncarz said by phone. Because Collins controls the county coffers, Poloncarz continued, “some of these organizations basically are so petrified of even speaking up and saying the true impact that these cuts have had.”
One grant recipient, who spoke anonymously, expressed serious reservations about the process but said the direly needed money couldn’t be turned down.
But Sean Donaher, the executive director of CEPA Gallery, one of the midsized visual arts groups that saw its funding eliminated by Collins last year, was less shy. He took issue with the rosy picture that Collins painted about the effects of his decision to stop funding smaller arts groups.
In the wake of the funding crisis, the photography gallery located in the Market Arcade on Main Street was forced to lay off the development director it shared with the Just Buffalo Literary Center — a big blow to the ability of both groups to seek the foundation and grant money that Collins has touted as an alternative to public funding.
“These organizations like CEPA and Just Buffalo, we’re striving and striving to put the proper professional staff in place so that we can grow and expand our services to the county,” Donaher said. “The fact that we can persevere despite hurdles and problems that were put upon us by the county is somewhat of a perverted point of proof on their part.”
Donaher also noted that money raised through emergency funds and campaigns like the Fund for the Arts and Give for Greatness were extremely helpful but can’t be counted on for years on end.
At the same time, the current county grants present something of a Catch-22 for struggling cultural groups. For example, a $30,000 grant will allow the Western New York Book Arts Center, which never received county money, to install an elevator that will create increased access to Just Buffalo Literary Center’s educational space above the Washington Street print museum. At the African American Cultural Center, which was hit hard by cuts, a $50,000 grant will allow the resident Paul Robeson Theatre to purchase a new stage.
The Locust Street Art Center, which has struggled in recent years to keep its doors open and programs running, will receive a $6,000 grant from the county for repairs to its roof and parking lot.
“We’re very glad to get any amount of money,” said Molly Bethel, the organization’s co-founder and longtime director. “I don’t want to rock the boat, but I think it is [Collins’] attempt to repair [his reputation]. I think he probably got so much pressure that he kind of had to do something with the election coming up.”
Among the organizations slated to receive checks from the county, pending the Legislature’s approval, is Shea’s Performing Arts Center, which came one step closer Tuesday to executing its long-germinating plan to take over the operation of Studio Arena Theatre.
Shea’s President Anthony Conte said he expects the new arrangement — which would see the Studio Arena space run by Shea’s as a presenting theater hosting productions from other companies — to go forward within nine months.
“The county’s contribution of $50,000 towards the capital needs of that building have gone a long way to giving Shea’s the confidence to take over that shuttered building,” Collins said. The money is slated to help repair the building’s infrastructure, he added.
The new county grants reflect Collins’ championing of what he defines as “regionally significant” or “self-sustaining” cultural groups — like Shea’s Performing Arts Center, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Burchfield Penney Art Center — over groups whose perceived impact is smaller.
He made a distinction between using public funding for operational support — rent, salaries, utilities — and capital improvements like infrastructure repairs.
“What we’re doing properly is using the undesignated fund balance so these organizations can improve from the capital perspective … and get more visitors and help themselves,” Collins said.
Poloncarz, who called for the return of the nonpolitical funding process that existed before Collins disbanded the Erie County Cultural Resources Advisory Board, blasted Collins for refusing to provide operational support to the county’s smaller and midsized groups.
“To say that they don’t have any value is completely irrational,” he said. “It shows that Mr. Collins doesn’t have an understanding of how the arts community works. But more importantly, these are assets to our community. What he’s doing is he’s saying, ‘I’m prioritizing what I believe to be the only assets to the community that matter.'”
At the end of Tuesday’s event, Collins defended last fall’s cuts as a matter of necessity.
“We can’t print money in the basement of the Rath Building. We have to balance our budget,” he said. “So it’s a decision I’ve made.”