By Rachel Leibrock

Mayor Darrell Steinberg stepped up to the podium outside of the Warehouse Artist Lofts on R Street in downtown Sacramento. It was June 14, 2017, another seasonably warm early summer day. A drumline beat out a thunderous rhythm line and Samba dancers, most wearing colorful feathered headpieces, twirled in loose circles. There were cheers and the mood was festive.

Steinberg, who had just been elected the year before, was there to deliver a purposeful message about how he wanted to reshape Sacramento’s identity.

The region was already widely known as both the City of Trees and, more recently, the nation’s Farm to Fork capital. It was time to expand how we viewed and defined Sacramento, he said. 

“We intend to make this a destination city,” the mayor told the assembled crowd. “A big part of doing so is to continue to reinforce and build our reputation as an arts and cultural mecca.”

Now, as the mayor’s two-term tenure is set to end come December, how did his actions meet his promises? Is the city’s creative economy better off than it was eight years ago? And, looking ahead, what challenges will the city’s new leader face?

‘A great city prioritizes arts and culture’

Steinberg’s 2017 promise to grow the city’s arts and culture community was partially rooted, perhaps surprisingly, in the long-time politician’s love and support for Sacramento’s professional sports. The Golden 1 Center had opened a few years before and, with it, the city had cemented its ongoing commitment to the Sacramento Kings.

For Steinberg, that signaled major possibilities.

“The Golden 1 Center was seen as a tipping point for Sacramento to begin identifying as a bigger city — as a city that offers more for its people,” Steinberg says. “And I’m a sports fan but while sports are great, that isn’t the only thing. A great city prioritizes arts and culture as much as it prioritizes sports.”

Since Steinberg’s first election bid, Sacramento’s artistic landscape, amid a 14.2% increase in its population and a global pandemic, has shifted and expanded into a culturally rich biosphere that features splashy big names: theatrical productions such as “Hamilton,” and massive music festivals like Aftershock, an international draw for metal fans, and GoldenSky, the acclaimed country music extravaganza. There have also been notable community efforts such as the ongoing mural project Wide Open Walls, and the Del Rio Trail, an abandoned railroad line turned 4.8-mile path that runs through several neighborhoods including South Land Park, Freeport Manor and Meadowview, and features more than a dozen permanent art installations along the way.

Each success, Steinberg says, has created more opportunities.

“The more I did, the more I wanted to do — I saw the excitement around all kinds of art, whether it’s museums, theaters, and music,” Steinberg says. “It’s all become a huge part of what I’ve tried to instill energy and leadership into.”

In recent years, he adds, the city’s character has evolved from its long-persistent reputation as a stodgy government town that stays home after dark and on weekends into something notably vibrant and energetic.

“If we’re going to build a modern, inclusive economy, then the creative economy needs to be a part of that,” he says. “Plus, it’s the fun stuff — it brings a lot of joy to people.”

The Creative Edge Plan, adopted by the Sacramento City Council in 2018, put forward six core goals including “advance cultural equity for Sacramento’s diverse populations, enable Sacramento artists and creatives to thrive in their work, … infuse all Sacramento neighborhoods and districts with arts and culture, [and] expand and solidify Sacramento’s investment in arts and culture.”

Jason Jong, cultural and creative economy manager for the city’s Office of Arts and Culture, says while there is still room for additional support and improvement, the Creative Edge Plan has been largely successful. Although 2023 numbers are not yet available, a 2022 OAC progress report indicated that “87% of goal strategies show some activity or ongoing activity since the plan launched.” 

“There has been growth in all areas, in terms of meeting the goals,” Jong says. “There are also opportunities for us to increase our [efforts]. It’s evolving.”

To date, approximately $6.4 million in city funding has been allocated to advance Creative Edge goals. Additionally, through a variety of sources — including ARPA, CARES Act, National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council and the County of Sacramento — OAC has leveraged an additional $23.9 million in funding, according to Jong. To date, $30 million has been allocated to the arts locally. 

Many of the successes are easy to spot. In 2021, for example, award-winning Broadway musical “Hamilton” arrived to christen the newly opened SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center — a year after COVID delayed its local debut. 

It had almost been stalled once again due the pandemic-induced construction delays for the new theater, but Steinberg says he was determined to make sure the lights were turned on.

“They were behind schedule and contractors wanted to cancel ‘Hamilton,’ and I said, ‘No way, we’re doing this,’” Steinberg says. “[Canceling] would be a black eye on our city. I became an expert on what needed to be done to get it done.”

Mike Testa, president and CEO for Visit Sacramento, says the mayor’s direct negotiations with the performing arts center’s contractors resulted in a successful run that brought in theatergoers from Sacramento and beyond. The mayor’s work, however, started long before that, he adds.

“He created a group to really study what we were spending money on, what the return would be, and he made the arts and the theater a priority in that conversation,” Testa says. “That was really valuable, too.”

A wealth of tourist money has poured into the city as a result. During its three-year run, for example, the GoldenSky Festival’s economic impact has been more than $30 million dollars over the last three years, Testa says. 

“It’s generated probably a million dollars directly in hotel taxes that go to the City of Sacramento,” Testa says. “The investment was a good one from a business standpoint in the sense that it’s returned far more than what was invested.”

COVID and the resulting lockdown, which shuttered live performance venues across the city, provided investment dollars as well. 

“[COVID] threw us a curveball, but we didn’t shrink from it,” Steinberg says. 

To mitigate what could have been a devastating blow to the creative scene, the city prioritized discretionary funding to small businesses, including performance venues.

In September 2021, City Council approved Mayor Steinberg’s American Rescue Framework and Funding Priorities, which detailed five focus areas, including the Arts and the Creative Economy. Out of those funds, more than $4 million dollars were spent to aid dozens of local arts organizations and businesses, big and small, including the B Street Theatre, the Latino Center of Art & Culture and G.I.R.L.S. Rock Sacramento. (Solving Sacramento was the recipient of a $250,000 ARPA grant from the City of Sacramento in May to support local arts journalism and the creative economy.)

Other efforts led to the passage of Measure N in 2022, a correction to outdated 1964 tourist ordinance language that limited the city’s ability to spend hotel and motel tax revenue and expanded its uses on “visitor-serving facilities that promote tourism [and] economic development“ including “theatre and arts venues.” 

Supporters say that another critical area of change has been Steinberg’s work with local school districts: The first goal listed on the Creative Edge Plan is to provide arts education for Sacramento’s children and youth.

In May 2018, nearly a year after his initial pledge outside the WAL building on R Street, Steinberg declared he wanted to seed the arts at a fundamental level. For decades, he said, the state’s public schools had “starved the arts.” That month, he announced a new campaign to raise money for arts education via the newly formed Sacramento Art Education Consortium. Boosted by an initial fundraising effort of $250,000, it would benefit 13 school districts in the county. He also formed the Friends of Sacramento Arts board, which launched in 2019 with a mission to ensure equitable access to regional arts education in K-12 public schools.

Educational opportunities can set an enduring baseline for the city’s artistic growth, Steinberg says, and can also get kids excited in creative work, whether that’s dance, theater, animation or video game development.

 “We need to expose and inspire young people to the joy of art,” he said. “You have to be thinking a generation or two ahead.”

Steven Winlock, commissioner for the Sacramento Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, says the Creative Edge Plan has been a critical force for local arts education in public schools that’s resulted in hiring more instructors, updating curriculum, after-school programs and residencies. To accomplish its goals, districts have partnered with local arts outlets such as the Crocker Art Museum, B Street Theatre, 916 Ink and Nor Cal Dance Arts.

“One of the biggest areas that we have to continue to look at is building a program for arts education that’s more embedded in the curriculum of the school,” Winlock says. “We need to show that arts education is just like what we do when we’re teaching reading or teaching math.”

A seat at the table

For a year, Taner Paşamehmetoğlu was one of five artists in residence selected by the Capital Region Creative Corps program; as part of the residency, which took place between September 2023 and September 2024, he received full-time pay and the opportunity to manifest change.

Paşamehmetoğlu says the gig, which he found and applied for via an online job site, allowed him to be part of a larger conversation.

“When people hear about artists in government specifically, I think people kind of just assume that, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s artists who are maybe doing murals,’” he says. “That wasn’t the case at all.”

Specifically, Paşamehmetoğlu says he participated in meetings, talked to officials and helped launch a grassroots campaign, Sustainability Starts with Us. And yes, there was a mural, too.

Paşamehmetoğlu praised the mayor’s efforts.

“For people like me to have a seat at the table, that’s hard if there aren’t those in leadership positions championing that kind of thing,” he said. “The art community and the government don’t always align. It’s cool [to] see when we can come together and figure things out. That’s something Steinberg championed.”

For Marina Texeira, owner of the long-time music venue the Torch Club, says that even though there are many areas where procedures could be improved or streamlined, particularly when it comes to the permitting process for live music outlets, she regularly attends  City Council meetings and experienced first-hand the direct efforts when it comes to not just building up the city’s music scene but ensuring its survival. During the pandemic, the club benefitted from federal and local COVID dollars.

“Without it, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.

Currently Texeira is in the process of finalizing paperwork for a $20,000 venues grant through the Office of Arts and Culture. The grant, funded through remaining CARES dollars, allows venues to, among other expenditures, upgrade and replace equipment. 

Steinberg’s endeavors helped, she adds

“He has been proactive and supportive,” she said. “He wanted to [work] on the level of building back up the arts.”

Texeira adds that she hopes the city’s next mayor — Assemblymember Kevin McCarty is in the lead as of press time — continues investing in the arts, particularly establishments hit hard by the pandemic and shifting habits.

“I’m sure they all know how tough it’s been on all of us downtown. Not many people are working downtown,” she says. “It’s not really come back [post COVID] so our hours are limited, which means we only have so many hours to make money because there’s just not enough people out and about.”

To that end, there’s still a need not just to ease the bureaucratic red tape but showcase independent artists and smaller venues.

“We don’t really get the trickle down,” she says. “It would be nice to have a little bit more support, promotion-wise, for these events because we are struggling.”

With Creative Edge’s current iteration set to conclude in 2025, Jong says that city arts leaders are working to implement its next phase. Future goals include providing at least 200 artists with a year of guaranteed basic income.

“We don’t have the capacity for that yet,” Jong says. “We’ll be having deeper conversations about realigning our relationship with the Creative Edge Plan.”

Steinberg says that, despite his successes, he knows there’s also much he didn’t finish during his time in office. 

“There’s still no ongoing source of funding for the creative economy, which is a real challenge,” he says. “But my message is that inclusive economic development, including the creative economy, needs to be a core budget priority.”

Steinberg urges his successor to continue the work. 

“It’s nonpartisan, non-ideological,” he says. “It’s a way to bring people together and it’s necessary.”
This story is part of the Solving Sacramento journalism collaborative. Solving Sacramento is supported by funding from the James Irvine Foundation and the James B. McClatchy Foundation. 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 monthly newsletter.