I got this from another site, but this makes me furious.
Everybody contact your Elected officials, and tell them that Arts piled onto the Dedicated Funding Bill is unacceptable and you will "vote no" if it makes it to the next ballot.
As a matter of fact, Copy and Paste this and send it to your Reps. Add whatever you want to say also.
The Arts don't deserve 22% of the pie; I don't care what Senators Pogemiller and Cohen state in their presentations.
The Arts have an $839 million impact on the state with almost $700 million of that being in the Twin Cities.
Conversely the Outdoors have a $4.2 BILLION impact with most of that spread evenly throughout the state. That means the Outdoors is 5x's larger than the Arts. That means for every dollar spent on the outdoors only 20 cents should be going to the Arts - not 67 cents as is written in Pogemiller's bill.
You have to remember another thing. The Arts weren't added until 2 years ago when Senators Pogemiller and/or Cohen forced the Arts onto the bill. The sportsmen vote helped in the defeat of the former Senate Majority leader over this issue, One, for not getting it on the ballot. Two, for not keeping the Arts impact to a minimum - and in an election in which the Democrats steam rolled the rest of the state.
This was posted on the Arts web site last March.......
Minnesota currently appropriates $8.5 million per year to the arts via grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils. As currently written, this bill could potentially double that funding to $16 million per year. (This would be slightly more than the arts had before the recent big cuts, which was about $12 million)
You can say what you want but I call this piling on as the amendment is for 25 years. The Arts share in the bill is $63.8 million per year - which if you do the math is more than 5 times what they used to get. It also translates into $1.595 BILLION over the life of the amendment.
The Legislature is cognizant of the fact of what we were able to do in Senate District 13 and that there were a number of close election races in both the Senate and House. They know that if they want to keep their jobs that they will have to listen to the sportsmen of this state. With Sportsmen for Change in the mix, they know that P's and Q's have to be watched.
Need I say more?
I would vote no without hesitation if the Arts are indexed more than 1/5 of the wildlife portion. The disparities are clear and if there is a ballot initiative that fails - it falls into the laps of the Democratic leadership who could not craft a bill that should have passed. This would or should be an embarrassment to the leadership.
Don't rule out the common sense of Minnesotans, even in strong DFL areas if only the sportsmen and women vote on one issue - Dedicated Funding for the outdoors. They'd be there if there was a vote on the second amendment so why can't they be there if there's a threat to their outdoor pastimes and those of their grandchildren?
One other item that needs to be added is that in testimony before Senator Chaudry's committee it was stated that tourism adds another $13 Billion to the state's economy. A lot of that is people going out and taking trips on Sunday afternoons looking at the country side. They stop along the way for a meal, get some gas and then head for home. So now you have $17 Billion in economic activity each year compared to $839 million or a 20 to 1 ratio.
Think that they wouldn't vote for the Outdoors amendment? But they may vote differently if told that a totally unrelated group is going to hijack the bill. If the Arts are that important, they should be able to stand on their own with their own amendment - maybe in a couple of years. The Outdoors doesn't need help from the Arts in getting the bill passed. But the Arts has to hope for one big miracle and we as sportsmen and women won't let it happen.
Of the three highest tourist areas in the state you have the Mall of America, Cabela's in Owatonna and Cabela's in Rogers. And with Bass Pro Shops is coming to MOA you are now making sure that 3 of 4 of the top tourist stops are outdoors related.
DU has half or more of the wildlife non-profit chapters in the state. Their grassroots fundraising total was $3,009,157 in 2005. So, add another $3 million maybe and that's the fundraising total for MWA, PF, TU, and the others. So that's roughly $6 million in grassroots fundraising by the outdoors community each year.
Art Institute capital campaign exceeds goal at $103 million
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts ended a multiyear capital campaign Wednesday with $103.2 million in contributions.
By Mary Abbe, Star Tribune
Last update: January 17, 2007 – 10:33 PM
Art
Art Institute capital campaign exceeds goal at $103 million
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts ended a multiyear capital campaign Wednesday with $103.2 million in contributions.
The money, from individuals, corporations and foundations, exceeded the museum's original $100 million goal, enabling it to pay for a $50 million addition and renovation project that opened in June and to set up 78 endowments to buy art for each department.
Twin Cities philanthropist Beverly Grossman, a longtime museum trustee who was co-chairwoman of the fundraising campaign, said it was a "historic achievement" for the museum, especially at a time when so many other arts organizations were also raising money.
The Guthrie Theater raised $87 million for a new building that opened in June 2006, and the Walker Art Center announced in April that it had raised $99.6 million for an expansion that debuted in 2005.
Nearly half of the institute's money, more than $47.5 million, came from museum trustees. The largest single donation, more than $10 million, was from Target Corp. The institution received more than 2,100 gifts of various sizes. No government funding was involved.
Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431 • mabbe@startribune.com
That's $289.8 million in fundraising with no government funding involved. That's roughly 4 and a half years worth of funding from the current proposed constitutional amendment. It looks like that total was raised in roughly 2 to 4 years. The outdoors community raised between $12 and $24 million in grassroots funding during the same period. That's a difference of over 12 to 24 times during the same period. Is there something wrong with this picture?
So now tell me that the Arts needs help from a constitutional amendment or that they don’t have any business being on one.....
Roughly a year ago (actually February 25th), Representative Marty Seifert had a Commentary published by the Star-Tribune in which of the top seven Executive Director non-profit salaries, the top six belonged to the Arts. It did not include any other staff members whose salaries exceded that of the governor. The data was from 2004.
Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts - $584,307
Minnesota Public Radio - $551,144
Guthrie Theater Foundation - $383,640
Walker Art Center - $374,341
Minnesota Orchestral Association - $333,564
Minnesota Historical Society - $229,163
That totals up to $2,456,161. Now compare that to the DU grassroots fundraising total of $3,009,157 and you have a difference of $552,996. And, I'd bet that the second in command salaries at those institutions have no problem adding up to or exceding the difference of the DU portion - or even a significant portion of the other half of conservation grassroots funding.
If you need any further proof, go to the web site for the Minneapolis Institute for the Arts and the Walker Art Center.
Now enter the following in their search window.....
Maass
Plaschaert
Kouba
Hautman
Jaques
Scholer
and tell me what you get. Do the names look familiar? They should, they belong to Minnesotans who have won the Federal Duck Stamp. Larry Redmond (the Arts lobbyist at the Capital) says that the Arts and the Outdoors are intrinsicly linked together but the Arts community can't even recognize the people who have made a significant contribution to both?
Here's the breakdown of where the Arts Funding is going to go.
State Arts Board $27.4 million
MN Historical Society - $14.7 million
Public Broadcasting - $14.7 million
MN Science Museum - $2.6 million
MN Humanities Commission - $2.2 million
MN Film Board - $1.6 million
MN Children's and Duluth Museum - $600 thousand
At the recent MOHA banquet and in Senate testimony in the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, Pogemiller admitted that perhaps the MN Film Board shouldn't be part of the amendment. Huh? Pogemiller writes the bill and admits that perhaps one of the beneficiaries shouldn't be on the bill, who else is on there for a free handout when they don't need it?
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Topic: Dedicated Funding and Arts (Read 2185 times)
