REMARKS
Council Member Carlina Rivera introduces joint committee hearing on cultural districts and public space activation
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3 min
Council Member Carlina Rivera, Chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries and International Intergroup Relations, introduces a joint hearing with the Committee on Small Business. She outlines the focus on naturally occurring cultural districts and how the Department of Small Business Services and the Department of Cultural Affairs can collaborate to enhance neighborhood quality of life.
- Rivera references the CreateNYC cultural plan, highlighting relevant issue areas such as neighborhood character and arts in public spaces.
- She emphasizes the importance of equitable funding for culture in underserved communities and strengthening connections between the cultural sector and government.
- The council member acknowledges other committee members and staff who contributed to the hearing preparation.
Carlina Rivera
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Thank you, Chair, Felise.
0:05:34
Good morning, everyone.
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I am Council member, Carlene Rivera, Chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs Libraries And International Intergroup Relations.
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We are pleased to join the committee on small business today to look at naturally occurring cultural districts and at how the Department of Small Business Services and the Department of Cultural Affairs might work together to enrich the quality of life in the city's neighborhoods.
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And create NYC the 10 year comprehensive cultural plan that over a 188,000 New Yorkers participated in that was adopted in 2017.
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2 of the original 8 issue areas outlined are particularly relevant to our hearing.
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1, neighborhood character, and 2, arts and culture in the public space.
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Strategies that were identified and create NYC as important for working on enhancing neighborhood character included these.
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Support Arts, cultural, and science programs in all neighborhoods, in all boroughs.
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Raise awareness and promote belonging in neighborhood art and cultural environments.
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Ensure that the support of neighborhood based arts and culture enables existing communities and cultures to thrive in place, and strengthen and protect the existing cultural infrastructure in New York City.
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We can agree that those are all well worth doing.
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Strategies that were identified and create NYC as important for working on some porting arts and culture in public space included these.
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Actively encourage, support, and strengthen public spaces as vital places for creative expression and community building, and increase opportunities for artists to work in public agencies and public space.
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That would cover the public artisan residence program currently operated by DCLA, which embeds artists in New York City agencies to engage with civic issues and the percent for art program, currently operated by DCLA, which commissions artists to create artworks with a budget taken from eligible New York City funded building projects.
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We can agree that those are well worth doing too.
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Both of those issues are now represented in DCLA's action plan adopted in 2019 to carry out the goals of create NYC and use since then to guide DCLA's work.
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One critical objective in the action plan is the very first one.
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Increase equitable funding and support for culture, especially in historically underserved communities.
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We hope that we can hear about how naturally occurring cultural districts can and do encompass and nurture our historically underserved communities.
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Another critical objective in the action plan is this.
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Strengthen connections between the cultural sector and government.
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As representatives of our local government, we are looking forward to hearing how we can strengthen our connections to our incredible cultural sector.
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I believe that we will also be hearing about some exciting work being done by cultural organizations to bring new resources and new ideas to our local communities.
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I'm looking forward to that.
0:08:49
I want to again thank the chair for his leadership, and I wanna acknowledge council members, Paladino, and Williams who have also joined us.
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I wanna thank the committee staff who put together this hearing and who always do such a brilliant job in preparing us as council members Christina Ylamati, the committee's counsel, Regina Paul, the committee's policy analyst, and Sandra Gray, the committee's finance analyst, and, of course, my staff, Katie Lowe, my chief of staff, and Eddie Amador, my director of communications and legislation.
0:09:20
Thank you, Chairman, Feliz.
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I'll turn it back over to you.
