Congrats to the Mayoral Nominees and Thanks to the Arts Voters!
Citizen Artist Baltimore extends our congratulations to the 2016 party mayoral nominees for Baltimore City: Democrat Catherine Pugh, Republican Alan Walden, and Green Joshua Harris. We look forward to continuing the conversation about Baltimore’s top arts and culture priorities ahead of the general election on November 8th.
None of this could have been possible without the thousands of arts voters who set our arts agenda and contributed to the surge in voter turnout during early voting and on April 26. Thank you all. Now that the field has narrowed down, we invite all arts voters to take a closer look at the questionnaire responses of the three leading mayoral candidates as you prepare to cast your final vote in November.
With the help of countless participants, invaluable guidance from our organizational partners and steering committee members, and major support from our funders, Citizen Artist Baltimore was able to include arts and culture as one of the many important conversations leading up the primary election. We engaged hundreds of citizen artists during seven listening sessions held at partner spaces across the city. Participants provided thousands of comments on existing cultural assets, forms of support, and concrete needs. Based on their input, the Citizen Artist Baltimore steering committee developed our priority statements focused on inclusive cultural planning, arts education and equitable access to jobs and funding for the arts.
These priorities served as the foundation for the mayoral questionnaire we distributed to all of the party candidates. With a nearly a month to spare, we secured, published and promoted in-depth responses from eleven of the leading mayoral candidates. These responses factored into the decision arts voters made at the polls leading up to and on April 26. Now the answers belonging to Senator Catherine Pugh, Alan Walden, and Joshua Harris will continue to serve as a crucial resource as we head towards the general election.
As we take a moment to celebrate (and catch our breath), Citizen Artist Baltimore is reaching back out to our listening session hosts, leaders, and partners in order to continue building on the successes of the initiative thus far. More details to follow on how we can and will leverage our art voting power to continue making Baltimore strong.
