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Alcala, Abigail From:Bryan Chang <bchang@dancemusicinitiative.org> Sent:Tuesday, May 7, 2024 12:49 PM To:eComment Subject:Arts Funding - Item 30 Fiscal Year 2024-25 Budget Work Study Session Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana. Use caution when opening attachments or links. Greetings mayor and city council, My name is Bryan Chang and I am the Executive Director for an arts education nonprofit. We host free DJing lessons that are open to the public in Santa Ana on a weekly basis. We started in 2010 and have been hosting them in Santa Ana for the last 2.5 years. We were recently awarded a modest grant from the Arts & Culture Department of Santa Ana. The funds have enabled us to offer our teaching volunteers a small stipend for their time/expertise, support the small business Santa Ana restaurant that hosts our classes by purchasing food and drink for teachers and performers, vinyl records for teaching, as well as infrastructural expenses. We've previously offered our programming in Irvine, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Garden Grove, and Newport Beach. Santa Ana has been the first city to offer support. For that we are immensely appreciative. I am writing to you today to make a public comment in support of continuing this type of robust arts funding in our community. I hope the Arts & Culture Department of Santa Ana can continue making these grants available to arts organizations like ours. I'd also like to call to attention the disparity of how Santa Ana allocates its arts funding by quantifying the amount of benefit each grant dollar confers. As David Byrne poignantly wrote in his publication How Music Works, "Opera halls, ballets, and large art museums receive more funding... than do popular art and what might be considered popular music venues. This is because of the edifying value ascribed to such institutions by people of a privileged economic and social class..." Case in point is that Santa Ana has the budget to offer a subsidy to the Bowers Museum of over $1.6M for 2023/2024 (as it rightfully should), however disproportionately 4x the amount allocated to all grassroots arts organizations combined. An avid art seeker will most likely only attend Bowers once a year. That same person will likely participate in their local art resources monthly or even weekly. Conservatively estimating, small organizations are getting 12x the participation rates for a quarter of the funding support. Museums are undoubtedly an important hub for art and Santa Ana clearly values their contributions. However, locally run arts organizations are vital to a city's culture and have the potential of reaching more people on a regular basis. Especially organizations that empower residents of the city to participate directly in the arts, versus just being a spectator. I'm asking for Santa Ana to value impact over prestige. Sincerely, Bryan Chang 1