TPAC fights for funding, not taking no for an answer
Tight budget forces city to cut $300,000 from TPAC next year
5:35 p.m. Wednesday, August 20, 2008
“Clearly, I think the taxpayers would rather spend their money on police and fire and streets than they would on the arts,” said Brett Blackburn, City Council member.
“I was absolutely devastated,” said Barbara Wiggins, TPAC Executive Director. “I don't have the words to express how I felt when I saw that.”
A $300,000 hole is what Wiggins and the Topeka Performing Arts Center has to fill now that the City cut all of its funding.
“The bottom line is that we can't operate without support,” she said.
In 2007, the city funded TPAC $362,000. $300,000 was from the general fund and $62,000 came from the transient guest tax. $40,000 of the guest tax was used to renovate the basement.
Keep in mind, TPAC is fully funded through the end of this year, so no upcoming events are in jeopardy.
TPAC holds 150 to 200 community events a year, everything from concerts, to children's outreach programs, to a naturalization ceremony happen here.
But no funding means those events are gone.
And to keep music acts coming in, the Center would have to raise ticket prices.
“It will have a negative effect, a very negative effect on this community,” she said.
Regardless of what the City decides, Wiggins says shutting off the lights and closing the doors is not an option.
“Everything you see in this building doesn't belong to the City, it belongs to TPAC, which is a private, non-profit entity,” she said. “Everything in this building would go, if TPAC the entity went.”
And that would leave an empty building that the City would still have to keep climate-controlled because it's connected to City Hall.
This 49 News poll from June of 2007 indicates taxpayers are in support of the arts.
But Wiggins says she doesn't think the community will let TPAC disappear, and she's not giving up either.
“Until I’m told by the Board of Directors I need to have an auction to sell the things in this building, that's when I’ll be concerned,” she said.
Late this afternoon, Wiggins and other TPAC leaders met with the City to discuss funding options.
Because of TPAC's involvement in the community, she says she's confident a compromise will be reached.
Related story: City budget debate continues (from July 9, 2007)
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