total time: 3.55 minutes
total words: 186
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Good morning. I'm Mayor Stephanie Burke and I'm coming to you live from City Hall. With us today are members of the Cultural and Arts and Recreation Transition Team. And I'd like to introduce a few of them that are here today. We have Ken Cross, who was the chair of the committee. We have Sarah Bevely. Monique Daugherty. and Paul Solano, and with us also is Allie Fisk, who's the newest addition to my office, and she is the liaison to businesses and to the cultural community. As you may realize, we put together three transition teams early on in our administration. One was the constituent service transition team, a second one was the business and economic development, and of course the cultural and recreational transition team. They've worked very hard over the last several months, not only meeting with the citizens, but also conducting surveys so that we could have a roadmap for the future of Medford from a cultural and recreational perspective on how we can move this great city forward to benefit all of the citizens of the city of Medford. So I'd like to introduce Ken Krause to say a few words, and then I will add a few comments.
[Krause]: Thank you very much, Mayor Burke. Our committee was very grateful and excited to be asked to help the mayor to look at ideas to enhance arts, culture, and recreation in the city. We agree that it's a very vital component to the quality of life in the city and also to the Medford economy and one of the many reasons why people choose to live in Medford and enjoy living in Medford. Some of the assets that we identified first was Medford's amazingly and growing diverse population, unique and fascinating history, talented artists, more than 80 well-run community organizations, a wide array of venues, big and small, central and spread across the community, ample open space, the Mystic River, and a strong arts program in our schools, not only visual arts, but also drama and music. So what we wanted to do as a committee was to gather as much information as possible from the people involved or interested in arts, culture, and recreation, and get their ideas on how we can make these activities flourish for the benefit of everyone in the community. So we had seven meetings as a committee. The first three were organizational meetings where we worked as a committee to kind of map out our process. And then four meetings that involved the public where we had an average of 11 people attend, which was good, particularly since we were in the winter months. and we, as Mayor Burke mentioned, put out a survey that was very straightforward and it asked people two things. What can the city do to improve the organization or the area of interest that you're involved with? And what can the city do on a more general scale to improve arts, culture, and recreation in the community? We got hundreds of responses and one of the challenges was boiling all that down into a report that we hope, as Mayor Burke said, is a roadmap for the city to follow. So we called those ideas into about 28 categories based on the most often mentioned areas, condensed those to 12 priority focus areas, and tried to organize them in a way that they could be implemented in short, medium, and long-term action items. Those were kind of in five or six broad categories. The first one being that we think it's important that the mayor and the city be a champion for arts, culture, and recreation in all aspects of the city operations. And the fact that she appointed this committee was a strong statement to the importance, in her mind, of arts, culture, and recreation in the community. So that entails being a champion, looking at the city planning strategically from all aspects of how city operations go, how planning is undertaken, and how communications are done. see the leadership from the city focusing on the arts, culture, and recreation as an important component of the city, getting that information to the community and working collaboratively with the organizations, we're going to see the type of improvement in the offerings and the programs that we all want. We realize it's going to take some additional personnel. We've made some recommendations for key staff positions and leadership roles in arts, culture, and recreation. and also in the school staffing related to arts in particular we cognizant there are many competing needs and demands for the city to address related to the budget but we've been able to identify some key positions that really would only probably require about a half a percent increase in what is currently allocated in the budget and can go a long way toward achieving objectives we're looking for, but also to generate more income. One of the ideas that was provided was to have a grant writer on staff, and that's someone that could obviously generate a lot of income for the city for the types of programs that we're looking for. And also, looking at our city facilities, it's important that they be invested in and kept to a high state of repair, both physical buildings and the open space and parks, so we make sure that those are safe and inviting for people to enjoy, and also looking for new sources of revenue that maybe haven't been tapped yet, such as the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund. So all those details are spelled out in our report, and I hope people will take the time to look through them. And we also approach this as an exercise not to just complete a report and be one more document that's sitting on the shelf. We think it's important that everybody who is involved, us included, will continue to work with the city to bring to fruition a lot of the ideas that have been suggested. Lastly, I just wanted to share one observation that came out of our committee, and that was some people questioned melding of arts, culture, and recreation into one committee. And there were several instances where maybe it wasn't obvious where arts, culture, and recreation can coexist or complement each other, but we came up with several ideas related to that. But the other thing that I found interesting was a lot of people mentioned that how refreshing it was and exciting it was to have people from different segments of the community together in the same room that rarely are in the same room together with arts, culture, and recreation. There were a lot of good insights shared, there was a better understanding of where each segment is coming from, its needs, and how we can support each other better. So I hope that exercise and that outcome is something we remember and there's more opportunities as the city evolves to bring people together from different aspects of the community to learn more about each other and how we can help each other. for the betterment of Bedford. So again, thank you for the opportunity to be on the committee.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much, Ken.
[Krause]: Appreciate all your support.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. I just wanted to add that there were a couple of other members that are not here today, but I did want to announce because of their hard work. They were Kelly Allen, who's a recreational hockey specialist, Joan Sear, Susan Fairchild, Anthony Petrellis, Gary Roberts, and Donna Sullivan. They also served on this committee. I have to send my heartfelt thanks to all of the members for all of the meetings that they held and all of the time that they put into not only engaging the public but also putting the report together that will be online this afternoon. So we're really proud of the work they did and I made a vow to them the very first night when I met with everyone that this will not be scrapped or put on the shelf. that we will work hard to try and achieve some of the goals that were set, and there were several goals, I have to say, that we will be working on. I know one was full-time recreational opportunities, so over the summer we'll be putting together a group, not only of parents and teachers and students alike, to find out what the needs are and how can we do things better. You know, we're not the same as every other community, so we have to do it our way and we have to do what's best for our community, but we make a vow that we will be investing time and energy to try and figuring that out. Also, we can't, this day can't go by without announcing the library is on a fast track to try and obtain state grants for the library facility. And as we all know, the library is multifaceted these days. It's not only to go in and study and research and read. It's becoming a meeting place for the public and it's a great facility. So we need to augment the services there and also add that second floor that's accessible so that the public can use it more for maker space and other alternatives for the arts community. And at this point, I want to introduce Allie Fisk, who has served hard and many years with the arts community in the city of Medford. She is our liaison to the arts community and the business community, which we feel overlaps tremendously. And she comes to us with experience with Caché and various other art organizations in the city and the state. So we're really proud to have her on board. And I know that she's going to be a great spokesperson for this office. And I'd like her to say a few words.
[Allie Fiske]: Thank you very much. So, as Ken was saying, the report outlines many recommendations which we're very excited about. And while we do intend on addressing those recommendations individually, we feel like ultimately this is a really great roadmap for us to use as we move forward with planning in the city in general, as it applies to arts, culture, and recreation. As the mayor had said, we've made a lot of strides already based on these recommendations that the recreation focus groups that we're going to be putting together, then also the library, and I did want to point out again that in addition of a full-time position, myself as a business and cultural liaison, really dedicated to making sure that the communication stays open between the cultural organizations and the city of Medford. And the position is also, it's a priority to help drive forward important arts initiatives and recreational initiatives in the city as well. We also, I want to mention that we do recognize that public art, which was mentioned in the report, ranging from sculptures, murals, site-specific performances and outdoor events, are a very integral part of our community. And we started working in partnership with the Medford Arts Council to smooth the path for public art projects, making it easier for artists to work with the city. And we want to promote and stimulate public art in the city. So we're proud to say that this list continues to develop very quickly. And in conclusion, we want to thank you again, all of the members, but also the public as well for your contributions via the survey and the focus groups. And although the transition team process has concluded, we welcome feedback year round and encourage you to reach out to us in regards to arts, culture and recreation and anything else here in the city of Medford. So thank you again.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. We are very pleased to announce this report and post it online for people to access and comment. And like Ali said, feel free to reach out to this office for any other ideas you may have in the future. We look forward to working with you. Thank you very much.
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total time: 3.55 minutes total words: 186 |
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