On November 4, 2024, local visual and performing artists and arts professionals spoke up during a Laredo City Council meeting to advocate for arts funding.
In 2019, the City Council approved an ordinance that allows for 2% of eligible bonds or debt obligations from city construction projects to be allocated for public art projects. However, during the October 28 meeting, City Manager Joseph Neeb discussed a proposal to pause or eliminate non-essential projects. Mayor Dr. Victor D. Treviño then asked about the art funding and raised concerns about the amount allocated when the utilities department faces its own funding issues.
As news spread about the potential for the arts funding to be reallocated for infrastructure needs, artists and arts professionals gathered to discuss a path forward. Martiza Bautista, Director of the Daphne Art Foundation, told Glasstire that nearly 30 artists attended a meeting on Sunday, November 3. While all were in support of the City maintaining its arts budget, some were less comfortable speaking at the City Council meeting. The group decided to attend the meeting wearing turquoise bandanas, scarves, or pocket squares to illustrate their collective support. Ultimately, approximately 40 people attended and 16 signed up to speak at the November 4 Council meeting. Citizen comments ran nearly two hours, occurring at the beginning and throughout the session.
Laredo artists and arts professionals speak at a City Council meeting. Photo: Alyssa Cigarroa, City Councilperson District 8
Ms. Bautista spoke first and set the tone for the evening stating, “The arts are essential and transformative as long as they are accessible…” She also spoke about the City recently posting its first Public Art Program Manager position, a milestone that signifies its investment in public art.
Norma Ortiz, read a statement on behalf of Maite Gomez-Rejón, an art and culinary historian, which insisted that “…clean water is essential for survival but art is what makes societies and cultures flourish… the arts are the soul of the city.”
Others noted that the water crisis the City is experiencing has been years in the making. Tim Rubel, a dance artist and Assistant Professor of Dance at Texas A&M International University, remarked, “The water crisis was caused by years of mismanagement and only exacerbated by building of suburban developments that strain the water system instead of cutting arts funding build less sprawling subdivisions… and invest in urbanizing our downtown, seek out state and federal grants for water infrastructure, and don’t raise the salaries of City Council and the Mayor when those funds could obviously be put toward our infrastructure needs instead.”
The issue of salary increases for the City Council was brought up by other commenters and stems from earlier Council meetings. In early September, Doanh “Zone” Nguyen, the City Attorney presented issues with an ordinance that dictates the Mayor and City Council members’ pay, noting that the language of base pay and allowances is ambiguous. During a later September meeting, some members seemed to have been in support of an adjustment to the ordinance, but others felt that making these changes would ultimately result in a major raise to the elected officials’ salaries without providing an opportunity for citizens to vote on the adjustment. After a long discussion, a vote was called and the language change and increase to base salary was passed. Councilperson Alyssa Cigarroa made a motion for a roll call vote so that there would be a record of who supported the salary change, however, the roll call vote motion failed.
Toward the end of the meeting, City Manager Neeb clarified that even though there are not currently art projects assigned to the budget line, the funding set aside for public art cannot be transferred and reallocated for utilities through the bond ordinance.
While it seems that arts funding in Laredo is safe for now, conversations about funding for the arts have been in the air in cities across the state. Over the summer the City Councils of Lubbock and Houston cut funds to specific art programs, and Arts Fort Worth, which had operated the city’s community arts center for nearly two decades, announced that it would vacate its building and shift its operations due to financial constraints.
