Promise is a promise on the arts

Keeping the Wichita City Council’s commitment to better fund the arts in 2006 by $719,000 will involve budget trade-offs. Keeping that support beyond 2006 could involve a car rental tax. In any case, the efforts that the mayor, council members and city staff have made in recent days to follow through on arts funding have emphatically restated the wonderful message the city sent in February — that the arts very much matter to Wichita. Well done.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

2 Comments

  1. Justin G. Mitchell
    Posted July 22, 2005 at 6:26 am | Permalink

    Here is an idea from another website, charge all those wonderful billboard companies for cluttering up skyline and use the money for the arts. Something the city of Toronto is considering. Here is a couple of links

    http://www.woostercollective.com/2005/07/beautiful-city-billboard-fee.html

    http://bcbf.them.ca/

  2. Steve Otto
    Posted July 22, 2005 at 11:22 am | Permalink

    Let the Wichita taxpayers pay for being dumb

    The headline on the Opinion page of the right-wing Republican-mouthpiece “miss-called” newspaper, The Wichita Eagle, April 22, 2005, insisted that Matthew Cuellar, who legally bought a sculpture the city auctioned off, should “Give sculpture back.” Oh really? In what universe does someone walk up to a buyer at an auction and say “I need that back. I didn’t realize it was valuable.” Any buyer would laugh in that person’s face and if they went to court, as the city already did, the judge would laugh in their faces (yes this has already happened).So why give it back? The Eagle is appealing to Cuellar on moral grounds and his compassion for local taxpayers. Compassion? Does the city have any of its own to give out? I haven’t seen it.