By Marie-Elena Schembri

Sacramento’s mayoral candidates presented their visions for the city’s creative economy at a two-part “Meet the Candidates for Mayor” Creative Economy meeting hosted by Atrium 916 in late September and early October. 

Dr. Flojaune “Flo” Cofer presented her plan during the Sept. 23 virtual meeting, which allowed community members to ask questions and learn about Cofer’s personal connections to the arts, goals for the creative economy and views on why public policy around arts is important.

Cofer introduced herself as “the daughter of two public school teachers” who grew up in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, in a “family full of artists and musicians,” who regularly attended public theater. She shared a personal story about how her arts education provided a creative outlet and a way to keep the memory of her late father alive as a young girl. As someone who also enjoys making art herself, Cofer said she has an “appreciation for professional artists and also those of us who do it as part of our human experience.”

Kevin McCarty, lifelong Sacramentan and California state assemblymember since 2014, offered his strategy during the Oct. 21 virtual meeting while fielding questions about creative job creation, plans for revitalizing the city’s neighborhoods and how he supports the arts in his personal life.

McCarty talked about his appreciation for live music and how being a father of two teenage daughters influences his perspective on being mayor. 

“I talk a lot about the basics, you know, a safe community, addressing homelessness, having a vibrant economy, building more housing so people can stay here and don’t flock to other cities, but I also talk about the fun of Sacramento, and I talk a lot about this — music and arts and food and sports — and that’s such a key in our creative economy,” he said.

Arts funding and public policy

Attendees asked several questions about Sacramento’s Measure U in the first meeting. Cofer, who served four terms as chair on the measure’s community advisory committee, spoke to the disappointments of this ballot measure, which was initially introduced in 2012 to reverse the effects of cuts to critical services — like police, fire and parks — as a result of the 2007-09 Great Recession. It was then reintroduced in 2018 as a permanent 1 cent sales tax to continue funding essential services as well as affordable housing, youth programming and economic development.

Cofer said that she was disappointed that campaign promises regarding the measure were not met, in particular stating that funds were supposed to go to the creative economy, inclusive economic development and affordable housing.

“The dollars did not flow to those three places in the way that they were promised. And that, to me, is a broken trust with voters,” she said. 

Shira Lane, founder of Atrium 916, asked Cofer about her plans to make up for the lack of arts funding allocated through Measure U or other sources like Transient Occupancy Tax (short-term hotel occupancy tax) dollars.

“The creative economy is the soul of the city, and while it received significant one-time investment from Mayor Steinberg due to the pandemic with the CARES and the ARPA funding, these funds will be depleted in 2025,” Lane said. “And on top of that, arts and culture, they’re not a line item on [the] city budget and they weren’t funded through Measure U as was discussed here.”

Cofer talked about a roundabout solution, including incentivizing people to experience and create art through improvements in the city’s overall appeal and looking at how dollars can be maximized through investments that yield a return. Funds for this would come from the TOT, the city’s general fund and Measure U, according to Cofer.

She also talked about utilizing recommendations from the 2020 Citywide Innovation and Efficiency Report to “efficiently retool our budget over the next few years so we do have more money, so we can get to a place where we have the promised dollars for Measure U.”

Cofer shared that she was drawn to serving on the Measure U committee because of a desire to highlight the importance of art to health and wellbeing.

“As a public health professional, we know that when we have artists and when we have spaces [for] people to be able to engage creatively, we see more community connections, we see longer life expectancy, we see decreases in violence,” Cofer said. “And so these are important parts of public policy that I don’t think get enough conversation and attention, and something that I wanted to be able to bring attention to.”

McCarty also talked about opportunities to create more artistic spaces, including the possibility of “adaptive reuses” of city-owned downtown real estate, while also revitalizing the “core” of the city. 

“Fourty-five percent of the buildings … downtown pay zero property taxes and so we need to flip them over [into] the private sector’s hands and other commercial activity at some of these low values … going to areas where there is an opportunity to go in there and bring the arts and creative economy activity, but also life to a core that has seen a stronger day,” McCarty explained.

McCarty shared some of his past projects that involved investing in the arts, including grants for nonprofits, the E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts, B Street Theatre and 3 Point 0 – Studio T Arts & Entertainment (formerly Studio T Urban Dance Academy). He also commended the city for giving microgrants to small arts organizations during COVID and said that is something he’d like to continue to focus on.

Vision for the future

Cofer said she is looking forward to supporting opportunities to grow Sacramento’s creative economy, encourage tourism, improve the appearance of the city through art and “foster the experience of young artists to be able to grow up and be able to thrive here.”

She also talked about promoting sustainability through better waste management and the possibility of creating an arts district or more spaces for artists through incentives for building owners.

Faith McKinnie of Black Artist Foundry asked about Cofer’s plans for investing in underserved communities. Cofer’s approach includes racial equity analysis and “productive and proactive” investments, something she says should have been part of Measure U’s inclusive economic funding.

“That’s something that’s really important to me that we fulfill the promise of because it’s desperately needed in this community,” Cofer said.

For McCarty, Sacramento’s future is bright; but it will take some work to get there, and he said he is “willing and ready to be a partner.”

“I see a lot of people run for office and promise everybody rainbows and unicorns. I’m not that candidate, I’m not going to write checks that we can’t cash. We have to live in a reality which is our budget constraints,” McCarty said. He emphasized coming up with creative solutions outside of funding, including making the regulatory process less rigorous for creative businesses such as music venues.

When asked about creating financial sustainability for the creative community in Sacramento, McCarty shared ideas of collaboration and building regulatory frameworks to support the arts. 

He said, “I want to work with people who are practitioners, look at a menu of ideas — some could be resources … but more importantly it’s about a partnership, about listening and engaging people in the industry that can help provide remedies and recommendations [on] how to move forward.”

This story was funded by the City of Sacramento’s Arts and Creative Economy Journalism Grant to Solving Sacramento. Following our journalism code of ethics and protocols, the city had no editorial influence over this story and no city official reviewed this story before it was published. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review, Sacramento Observer and Univision 19. Sign up for our “Sac Art Pulse” newsletter here.