Candidate Questionnaire 2020

I will rely on advances in technology to support the long-term recovery and sustain the arts and cultural sector. Specifically, I would encourage live streaming classes and exclusive performances that provide options to donate to performers to sustain their livelihoods.

I believe that the arts and cultural sector influences society by helping to change opinions, instilling values and translating experiences across space and time. Thus, I support this sector because of my belief that arts and cultural activities help communities to preserve their identities and transmit heritage.

To be able to express oneself freely is one of the most important ways of staying sane and living a productive life. I learned this lesson early on and I did it through writing in a personal journal. It was – and still is — therapeutic and has helped me deal with major and minor challenges throughout my life.

One of my favorite authors, the late Graham Greene, put it this way. “Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

Today, our community is facing a horrific pandemic that has turned our world upside down. We are hurting in every imaginable and unimaginable way. And throughout history, those who have helped us the most to cope through crises are the writers – storytellers — artists, singers, painters, sculptors, composers, musicians, videographers, film directors, dancers et al. And I would add many, but not all, in public positions who really understand the importance of music, art, drama, etc.

When my youngest child, Ashley, moved to Baltimore seven years ago, I visited her regularly and each time she would take me to art museums, galleries, music festivals, book fairs, and numerous community events that demonstrated the rich, diverse culture of Baltimore. And when I moved here, I continued to be exposed to an arts community that had deeper roots than many of the arts communities I’ve seen in many other cities in the United States.

Living in Baltimore, I’ve seen and have appreciated the artwork of artists and musicians and writers et al that reflect the diverse culture of the city. And more and more, I’ve seen how artists have tackled the issues of Baltimore and how artists who’ve visited Baltimore and shown their work have inspired Baltimore’s artists. I think of Mark Bradford, the LA-based artist whose “Tomorrow is Another Day” exhibit last year at the Baltimore Museum of Art tackles tough subjects.

If elected, I will push hard and use every opportunity afforded me through the bully pulpit to support the arts in every form from the grassroots level – schools, communities, diverse organizations – the museum level. As a community, we need to engage and support the thousands who are involved in the arts as well as the Baltimore community at large. We can’t get through this tough period if we don’t support the vibrant arts community that gives Baltimore its signature strength – resilience.

I believe we need to lift up more digital events in the immediate future, and eventually hold in-person events with small populations scattered around the city to maintain CDC guidelines in the medium-term. Baltimore City government should play a role in this by advertising and participating in events, underscoring the importance of the arts in the success of our city. As mayor, I would establish an arts fund that would include taxpayer dollars, as well as writing and supporting grant proposals to local and national foundations. I currently write grant proposals for my environmental justice nonprofit, so I would love to be hands-on in helping the arts recover.

As Mayor, I not only will but am supporting our arts and cultural sector through this crisis. My Fiscal Year 2021, which I presented earlier this month and which represented many difficult decisions made in light of the COVID-19 crisis, maintains funding levels for all of our arts and cultural institutions. I have pledged historic funding for several of our institutions, and plan to keep that pledge intact, because I believe that our cultural institutions and our arts community are what make our city so vibrant, to both residents and to visitors.

I grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama at the height of the civil rights struggle.

A Church bombing, water hoses and police dogs defined the era.

Despite those obstacles, in 1972, everyone was able to attend the Shakespearean Festival in Anniston, Alabama, schools sponsored field trips to the symphony, the zoo and botanical gardens. It was my exposure to the activities described above, as well as other arts and cultural activities that served to broaden my perspective. I am who I am today because of the sum total of my positive and negative environmental experiences.

My older daughter Kristen has had a deep influence on how I look at the world and how the arts have enabled me to see the world in ways I never could have imagined years ago.

Kristen is a curator of photography at the Boston Museum of Art. Her exhibits have been seen across the United States and given audiences the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of photographers immersed in their respective communities.

These exhibits have changed the way I see the world and have given me a deeper appreciation of diverse cultures. The photographs have inspired me, shaken me up, and challenged my prejudices gained from the culture I’ve grown up in.

And I’ve seen both first-hand and as an observer how the photographs have opened the public’s eyes to the healing power of art. The photographs have captured the sorrow, tragedy, pain, suffering, and resilience of people in communities from Europe and the Middle East to the indigenous people of Mexico.

Kristen’s exhibit, “She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World” featured the work of 12 photographers from the Middle East helped viewers better understand the experience of those living in communities that the public often disparages.

And Kristen’s exhibit Memory Unearthed:The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross featured photographs taken surreptitiously by Henryk Ross that documented the horror, the evil that was taking place when hundreds of thousands of people in this Poland ghetto were sent to German concentration camps. The photographs reflected not only the horror of one of the most evil chapters in history but also of the resilience of a people and a community who understood, better than most, the importance of the healing power art and music and photography and writing, etc. I was one of the thousands of people who came from all over the world to see these photographs and I was profoundly moved.

Participating in theater in high school had a huge impact on me, strengthening friendships and teaching me how to collaborate on ideas and lead. Music constantly plays a role in my life, inspiring me to take up instruments and write music. We need to provide more access to the arts in our rec centers and libraries, and my platform includes increasing funding for both to provide more diverse programs and extend hours.

As a lifelong Baltimorean, I have been fortunate to be a part of every audience, from plays at the Arena Players to the groundbreaking and news-making exhibits that our Baltimore Museum of Art has been showing in the last few years, to live performances at AFRAM and ArtScape over the years, to listening to incredible music made by our world-renowned Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Few things make me prouder of Baltimore than seeing art that has been created or performed right here, whether it is for a major event or a set at a small jazz bar in our city. Our arts and cultural scene are one of our greatest ambassadors to the world, and I have always been both a fan and a proud supporter of the institutions and venues that support, educate and employ our artists.

To me, the epitome of realization that Baltimore must and must continue to properly support our artists and budding artists was when Amy Sherald was selected to paint First Lady Michelle Obama’s portrait. What an honor and affirmation for our city, to have a Baltimore-educated and -based artist as the first African-American woman to paint an official First Lady portrait, and to be selected to do so by the greatest First Lady in our lifetime. We have so many more talented established and budding artists of all kinds in our midst, here in Baltimore, and I look forward to what accolades the next generation will bring.

My administration will ensure that the office of humanities gets pertinent information to constituents. My goal is to ensure that all students have access to quality education, thus, we will only employ qualified professionals to teach music, visual arts, theater and dance to our students.

I will work to remove from their position, any stakeholder who does not advance the program of making available music, visual arts, theater and dance to our students.

First and most important, this requirement is one of the most important requirements in the entire curriculum. Period. Too many people downplay the arts. Often, the arts are the first to suffer from a budget crisis cities face. This has to change. And in a leadership position in Baltimore, I would be an outspoken supporter of the arts and demanding that the school system do what it’s required to do by law regarding the arts.

Fortunately, as a twice-elected public official in Massachusetts (a member of the School Board that governs the public schools in Ipswich, Massachusetts), I had the privilege of being a board member of a school renowned for its arts culture. It was great to witness hundreds and hundreds of students involved in the arts and music. Football and Lacrosse players and baseball players had scores and scores of their teams also involved in music and the arts. It was a culture where kids thought nothing of a football player who also played the violin or of a violinist who also played football. As a political leader, I would bring that rich experience to the Baltimore community.

And in case I forget to mention, I was raised by two parents who were in the field of entertainment. My dad was a saxophonist and a big band leader and my mother was a dancer who toured the country in Vaudeville and then later danced in New York and Philadelphia. And my uncle was a playwright and author.

Answer: I am proud to be the lone candidate calling for drastic, specific cuts to the Baltimore City Police budget. These cuts include a $75 million reallocation toward Baltimore City Public Schools, including:

• $25 million – School resources
• $15 million – New teacher hires
• $15 million – Increased teacher pay
• $10 million – Mental health counselors and programming
• $5 million – Comprehensive sex-ed programming and contraception

From there, I would work with the Baltimore Teachers Union, the school board, and students on where the funding should be allocated. This is before Kirwan funding, which would include instituting a nonresident income tax, among other policies in my platform.

I fully support the Kirwan recommendations and I’m working hard to fund it.

Our kids and teachers across Baltimore City and across Maryland deserve a world class education system, with arts, music, counselors, and everything they need to succeed.

I am fully committed to meeting our local obligations and working with Baltimore City’s Budget Leaders in the General Assembly to get this done.

Arts education enables those children from a financially challenged background to have a more level playing field with children who have had those enrichment experiences.

I will create an advisory committee, as well as work with CAB to draw people from the constituency groups named to give input for policy development.

I will rely on the information developed by the advisory committee to determine strategic deployment.

The creative economy will play a vital role. Good culture draws people, keeps the city vibrant, and helps build the economy. Many of the business outlets are small businesses that I fully support.

To start, I would put together a broad-based team of folks (from the groups mentioned above but also from the front – that is, musicians, artists, et al working in the field), and I would use my position to get artists and writers and musicians et al to come to Baltimore. And if I had that bully pulpit, I would use it to bring other folks into Baltimore. But most important, I would focus on the talent we have here already. Goethe once said, “The hardest thing to see is what’s in front of your eyes.” And I would promote them.

Here’s what Baltimore City needs: a mayor who has a major presence in social media, a mayor who will be the chief spokesperson for the city. Everybody will agree with this, but rarely do people do it the right way. This is what am particularly good at.

For twenty-five years, I wrote speeches for CEOs and other executives at some of the country’s biggest and most important companies (Honeywell, Digital Equipment Corporation) and for twelve of those years, I was the communication lead for a worldwide organization at IBM. My job was to make these leaders and the IBM Global Public Sector look good. And I established IBM’s first internal website/blog.

I would also create in week one an Innovation and Collaboration Center consisting of those inside and outside Baltimore City Government supported by the public. The purpose: to explore ideas in virtually every aspect of government and to inspire City Government entities to start doing things differently. And the arts would be a big part of that. I’ve been impressed with some of the art shows sponsored at City Hall. I would that to see things like this expanded.

I am more than happy to engage artists, arts organizations, and the like on how to build on upon Baltimore’s vibrant scene. I want to assure events and programming are offered throughout the city’s Black Butterfly, increasing events in Westport, Sandtown, Park Heights, Cedonia, and more. This could include the opening or reopening of community theaters. Utilizing the arts as a tool of expression, entertainment, and employment in these communities would strengthen them tremendously. Attracting or re-attracting events like comic, anime, and music conventions, as well as more touring shows, would be a priority too.

The creative economy is simply a large and growing part of Baltimore’s economy. It is not, nor should it be, seen or treated as separate. The health of our creative economy is equally as essential to our growth as that of our business or institutional sectors. To that end, I would like to create an arts and culture component to our long term plan for economic growth and support.

I would create a position within the Baltimore Development Corporation, to allow an individual to serve as a liaison between the City and our growing arts real estate sector and all of our cultural institutions, large and small, to facilitate ongoing conversation about economic policies and how they affect the arts and culture sector. This position would also work with incubators such as Open Works to provided assistance in boosting their resources and broadening their geographic reach.

Unemployment and fear of unemployment is a major issue for many of our young people. As mentioned above, a thriving arts economy can not only provide a large number of employment opportunities for young and old alike, it can also provide hope.

By advancing initiatives to ensure that we have bike lanes, transportation and commuter systems city wide, to provide access to activities.

I will be a visible presence at events across the city to give my support to the industries.

I will work with my Advisory Board and CAB to identify ways to improve access to capital.

I am fully committed to Baltimore and will commission studies, provide access to grant writing and other resources to ensure that my budget fairly and equitably funds Black-led organizations for our majority Black population.

I wish I had more time to expand on my answer but let me say a few things that address your questions:

• Here’s how I approach any new task. Find out who are the best in the world at doing exactly what you are asking.
• Study what they are doing – talk to everyone.
• Start slowly but strategically doing not just what others have done successfully but doing what you think is even better.
• Never forgot, however, that the people with the ideas are those right in front of you
• We did a major study around the world at IBM and asked people where their best ideas came from. And they came from within. I’d like to liberate city workers to contribute their ideas. They are a great group of people and I am disgusted at hearing candidates tell us how bad their work is. They need better supervision and they need a leader who can promote them, respect them, and be a champion. I don’t see this in the current leadership, and I don’t think many, if not most of the other mayoral candidates get this.

 I would tirelessly in this area and with a kitchen-cabinet of people who love the arts (powers-that-be in the community and artists themselves) I would use my bully pulpit to raise funds and promote the arts.

As mentioned earlier, I would love to identify funding for city arts fund, while also writing letters of support for individual organizations submitting grant proposals. When we speak of “equity,” I always underscore that we have to be inequitable in our strategy – that is, having a concentrated effort into programming, events, organizations, and communities that have been neglected or disregarded entirely.

I have spent my entire career pushing for equity of all kinds, and support of our cultural community is absolutely no different. In fact, my FY 2021 budget includes a 20% increase in arts and culture funding that directly encourages equitable neighborhood development. This is because I know, and have personally seen, the difference that thriving arts and cultural spaces, no matter how big are small, can have on a neighborhood and on a community.

I have and will continue to work with our State delegation to bring bond bill money to our non-profit and for profit spaces and organizations that support arts, arts education, and artists of all types. I proudly supported and advised Delegate Nick Mosby during his commitment to and push for equity in bond bill disbursements over the last two sessions of the State Legislature, which results in increased funding for the Arena Players, among others.

Integrity, strong and ethical governance is what it will take to improve our city’s image. I am a leader who genuinely cares about the people I serve. I firmly believe that together we can improve the image of Baltimore with an ethical leader at the helm.

First of all, those figures are breathtakingly amazing. Period.

Do you know what one of the biggest problems we have in Baltimore is? (OK. I know crime, and the lack of jobs, and poorly supported schools, etc. are up there) But we have an amazing number of groups across the city, and for people coming here, they’d never get an inkling of what have to offer. In fact, I’m shocked that all kinds of folks I’ve me over the past few years have not a clue as to the scope of what we have going by way of arts.

So, to get back to that big problem I mentioned above, it’s communication. Communication. Communication. The mayor has to be a fanatic – in the best sense of this world – in promoting these groups.

The first thing I would do is to hire a Chief Communications Officer reporting directly to the mayor. If you see a corporation, e.g., that has a communications director who doesn’t report to the CEO, you should be skeptical of that organization and of that CEO. Communication is a strategic strength of an organization when exercised intelligently.

So, with CCO, I would get her or him to start training key people throughout City Government to be present in a big way in social media.

I try not to pay as much attention to the ignorance of our current president, however difficult that may be at times (read: every day). It’s clear Baltimore’s arts and cultural scenes play a key role in our success – events like Artscape, Afram, and Pride show off our great city. But we must do more to lift up communities that have been exposed to decades of institutional racism and intergenerational poverty. Events like the Tuesday after the 2015 Uprising, where residents from across the city came to clean up, dance, sing, paint, play music, and express hope are the types of events we need consistently. My Poverty Erasure and Community Enhancement (PEACE) Zones policy will invest $170 million into six communities each year – 24 over a four-year term. The funding includes $18 million annually toward recreation centers, including reopening, expanding hours, and enhancing programming – especially the arts.

I enjoy a strong working relationship with both Visit Baltimore and our Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts. I have been and will continue to encourage them to work more collaboratively, as our arts and cultural institutions and communities, both through form processes and informal communications around events, promotions, and public engagement.

I see artists and cultural practitioners playing a heavy role in addressing community needs.

I and members of my administration will work hand in hand with artists and arts and cultural organizations to meet the needs.

By and large, people from the art community have a better understanding of issues than those who are professional politicians. So, a leader should be listening carefully to that community and using every opportunity to promote what they are engaged in.

I would take my lead from the late Jean Riboud who was one of the greatest corporate leaders in the 20^th century – CEO of Schlumberger. He was, ironically, a French socialist who ran a great American company. And he was close friends with some of the leading artists and writers and musicians and philosophers in the world. He was a great contributor to the arts – the DeMenil-funded Houston museum – and regularly promoted the work of the artists he befriended.

Among other things, I would recruit supporters of the arts – and there are many in Baltimore and elsewhere – to support events and programs to promote arts.

And finally, here is the criteria I would use for success in supporting the arts and in leading in general.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

Art therapy is incredibly therapeutic, and must play a role in healing the traumas experienced by our city. My PEACE Zones policy includes $12 million annually toward mental health facilities, which should incorporate art therapy. Mentioned earlier, my $10 million toward mental health counselors and programming in our public schools also should include art therapy opportunities.

The reason I am running is to lift up the people and organizations who have struggled most, or are barely getting by in our current system. I want to have consistent meetings with residents, nonprofits, community associations, small businesses, and the like to facilitate trust and confidence in the mayor’s office to implement sweeping and just change.

Artists and cultural practitioners are our greatest teachers, conveners, and uniters between and within neighborhoods, communities, and regions.

Our artists’ work is a reflection of the environment that they are in. So the main role I see in artists is healing, reflection, and awareness. So giving artists the resources they need to continue this is vital. If we invest in, and subsequently listen to, and analyze the artists around us, we will gain a great perspective on the needs of the community and will put us in a better position to address those needs.

Investing in these groups to allow them to better organize helps us all. The mark of a stable and peaceful society is when the artists are able to flourish. It’s hard to create when you are struggling financially and we must support them.