For Arts and Heritage Day on March 4, 2015 Suzanne Ostersmith, Instructor and Dance Program Director, and Kathleen Jeffs, Assistant Professor and Department Chair of the Theater and Dance Program, met with regional legislators in Olympia, WA. At the event Ostersmith, Jeffs, and Laura Becker, Executive Director of Spokane Arts, met with a host of legislators to discuss cultural concerns in the community and schools. To bolster support for the arts in Spokane, Ostersmith and Jeffs attended the event and advocated for the arts.
“It made me very excited for our future both here in Spokane and at Gonzaga with our new Performing Arts Center in the works,” Ostersmith says.
[Advocating in Olympia] made me very excited for our future both here in Spokane and at Gonzaga with our new Performing Arts Center in the works.”
– Suzanne Ostersmith, Dance Program Director
Jeffs says, “Not only did we make fabulous connections with other arts advocates across Washington State, we particularly strengthened our bond with the Spokane Arts scene and the folks from Cultural Access Washington,” an initiative to increase access to cultural educational experiences.
“Personally,” Jeff says, “I found it thrilling to pull our representatives off the floor and make a direct impact on the legislative process.”
One legislative issue that Ostersmith and Jeffs advocated for was Cultural Access Washington Senate House Bill 1107/5463.
If passed, as Becker writes, this bill “would allow each county to impose a sales or property tax of .1% In Spokane County that could generate up to $7.6 million that would help sustain cultural, science, arts and heritage organizations.”
Becker adds that Spokane’s filmmaking community is something that needs to be supported; production companies that film locally hire local and support the creative economy here in Spokane.
On the other hand, Senate Bill 5190 was contested by Ostersmith, Jeffs and Becker. This bill would eliminate the Washington State Arts Commission’s Art in Public Places program.
As Becker says, “Public art humanizes the built environment and invigorates public spaces. It provides an intersection between past, present, and future – between disciplines, between ideas, and between members of our communities.”
The group of culture lobbyists learned that direct advocacy plays a huge role in raising lawmakers’ awareness about the bills that are put up for vote.
Some of the legislators, Jeffs says, were unaware of the arts bills, “so it was extremely important for us to study the issues and present arts interests in a way that was genuine and informative for our busy representatives.”
The event at Olympia allowed for the representatives to make connections within the Spokane arts community and with those from Cultural Access Washington, strengthening the bond between like-minded individuals and building the case for the growth of the arts in Spokane.