After a fiery five-hour discussion, the future of the Council on Culture and Arts (COCA) still hangs in the balance.
The Leon County Commission postponed its decision on whether to renew its contract with the nonprofit or take on the organization’s operation in-house.
At least 50 people flooded the county commission chambers to speak, all of them asking commissioners to keep COCA as the lead agency funding the arts over Visit Tallahassee, which runs the area’s tourism marketing.
Commissioners voted 5-1 on May 12, with Commissioner David O’Keefe in opposition and Commissioner Brian Welch absent, to schedule a June workshop to discuss the county’s agreement with COCA and how to increase commission oversight of the $2 million grant program.
Even though he was the original ringleader behind the agenda item, Commissioner Christian Caban was the one to propose postponing the decision and instead organize a workshop on the matter, saying he couldn’t comfortably make a decision without more robust conversations.
“I know that this is an important issue,” Caban said at the meeting. “I think this demands a workshop.”
For a long period during public comment, Caban wasn’t present listening to speakers. He said he was outside of chambers talking with COCA Executive Director Kathleen Spehar, which led him to his decision that a workshop was necessary.
The arts foster identity, creativity and community, COCA supporters told commissioners, but without an organization specialized in supporting them, Leon County runs the risk of losing its arts identity altogether.
“We connect every part of the community,” Spehar said in opening remarks to commissioners.
Dozens of speakers pointed to the ins and outs of COCA’s operation that make it so vital to preserving art and culture in the capital county. COCA runs two Tourist Development Tax (TDT) funded grant programs and determines how to award and distribute funds it brings in to directly support arts and culture initiatives in Tallahassee, according to county agenda materials.
County staff said COCA’s budget has sky-rocketed over the years while its structure and agreement with the county hasn’t changed. “That’s the conversation we’re having tonight,’ said Matt Cavell, the county’s director of community relations and resilience.
While some speakers and commissioners said the change would ultimately unravel the organization, Cavell said the decision before the commission isn’t whether to end COCA but rather eavluating how the county administers the important program.
Last September, Caban posed the idea of bringing COCA’s work in-house under an arts-specific division within the county’s tourism department as a means to generate cost savings. Opponents of this argued arts and culture is worth more than numbers, but even still, COCA has the numbers to back up its critical role in the community.
“Arts aren’t in competition with tourism, they are the long-term reasons people decide to stay in Tallahassee,” a speaker said.
Another speaker said COCA and the division of tourism are both powerhouses at what they do but it’s because they’re separate that they thrive.
“I’m here to remind you, two is better than one,” he said.
Without the arts, and COCA’s work, the community becomes “less connected and less alive,” another speaker said.
Six years ago, this same discussion was before the dais, but the sitting commission at the time decided to hold off on stripping COCA of its funding role. The idea to consolidate the council’s work into a specialized division within the county has been on the table several times before, and O’Keefe said there’s a reason past commissions voted against changing the structure.
“I don’t think we should change what isn’t broken,” he said. “I don’t think we should workshop because I think we ought to make a decision or not. I’m mad we even had to go through this.”
Commissioner Nick Maddox disagreed, saying this issue is exactly what a workshop is for. A $2 million budget is a lot of money, he said, and the workshop allows all the players to sit down and paint a picture of what oversight would really look like.
“To say we shouldn’t be here, why shouldn’t we be here?” Maddox said. “We’re here every single year talking about budget. One of our biggest jobs is talking about budget.”
At the beginning of the discussion, Commissioner Rick Minor said voting to extend COCA’s contract was “the clear choice.” He was hesitant to OK the workshop, fearing that it wouldn’t be enough time between now and June to gather all the information necessary to be fully up to speed, but he agreed a larger conversation was important.
“We can’t pull the rug out of a 40-year-old organization that has served this community well with a week’s notice,” Minor said. He added that withdrawing the fund would likely result in the elimination of two or three staffers and force the organization to shut down in a year or two.
Commissioner Bill Proctor said the workshop was important because the “butt naked truth” is that “a weak-kneed and spineless” board of county commissioners in the past “appeased” COCA and former County Commissioner Kristin Dozier in handing over its funding oversight to benefit LeMoyne Arts, which organizes the annual Chain of Parks arts fest.
“I ain’t against nobody per se,” he said, “but I do wanna know how come 66 counties have retained control, but we’ve given our legislative authority away.”
Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X: @elenabarreraaa.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: COCA’s future in flux as arts funding fight divides county commission
Reporting by Elena Barrera, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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