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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Lauren Miller, Co-Director of HERE Arts Center on Arts Funding
6:22:09
ยท
128 sec
Lauren Miller, Co-Director of HERE Arts Center, testified to request $75 million in baseline funding for the FY 2026 DCLA budget to secure the future of culture in New York City. She emphasized the essential role of arts in driving local economies, securing public health and safety, and being the core of cultural life.
- Miller stressed the need for timely applications, contracts, and payments, noting that delayed CDF award notifications cause cash flow issues.
- She highlighted HERE Arts Center's 31-year history as a creative home for diverse artists, including trans, queer, and immigrant artists.
- Miller emphasized the arts' responsibility to maintain safe spaces for marginalized artists, especially in the face of federal threats.
Lauren Miller
6:22:09
Thank you council members and chair Rivera.
6:22:11
My name is Lauren Miller.
6:22:12
I use sheher pronouns and I'm one of the co directors of Fear Arts Center, a downtown performance institution which for thirty one years has been a creative home for trans artists, beer artists, immigrant artists and audiences of all backgrounds from New York City and around the globe.
6:22:27
We're here today to join our colleagues from across the arts to ask the council to baseline $75,000,000 in the FY 2026 DCLA budget and finally begin to secure the future of culture in our beloved city.
6:22:39
We consistently make the same case to the council every spring and prove it to New Yorkers all across the city and every borough all year round that the arts are essential to the city's well-being.
6:22:49
We drive our local economies, we secure our public health and safety, we are the core of our cultural life.
6:22:54
Studies consistently prove that every dollar invested in the arts is multiplied by the economic activity that we generate, not to mention the truly astounding outcomes that arts have on the quality of life issues that are really important to every New Yorker, particularly within working class communities.
6:23:10
Here take seriously our responsibility to maintain a safe and generative space for artists who are being marginalized by the agenda of the current federal administration.
6:23:17
New York City likewise has responsibility to meet their needs and bolster all of us against these threats, threats that are not only to our funding, but to our very existence.
6:23:26
The arts desperately need security, securing DCLA's baseline funds is absolutely essential to our survival during these unstable times.
6:23:33
Without an increase to baseline, which would guarantee our funding for the coming year, the lives and livelihoods of artists will be made even more precarious.
6:23:40
But with $75,000,000 in baseline funds, arts organization will have just a little bit more of the stability that allows us to imagine the future.
6:23:47
And with that vision, we can empower artists to articulate their own and imagine the just futures that we deserve.
6:23:53
I also want to stress how vital it is to our survival that applications, contracts and payments are made in a timely fashion.
6:23:59
For two years running, CVF award notifications have come more than halfway through the fiscal year, which causes cash flow streams and reduces our ability to plan for the future and execute those plans effectively.
6:24:10
So investments into fully staffing and funding GCLA as an agency
UNKNOWN
6:24:13
Your time's expired.
6:24:14
Thank
Lauren Miller
6:24:14
you.
6:24:14
You, counsel.
6:24:16
Appreciate you.