A communication from Councillor Mallon, submitting notes of the meeting on March 13, 2019 of the Mayor's Arts Task Force

SUBJECT: Submission - Arts Task Force Meeting Notes

Please place the attached notes from the sixth meeting of the Mayor’s Arts Task Force on the City Council Agenda as “Communications and Reports from Other City Officials” for the March 13th meeting. I am also attaching supplemental materials which were used by the Arts Task Force members and made available to the public.

Thank you,

Councillor Alanna Mallon

Mayor’s Arts Task Force Meeting #6

Licensing and Permitting

Date: March 13th, 2019

Location: Cambridge Community Foundation

Meeting began at 5:43pm

Members of the Task Force in attendance: Alanna Mallon, Chair; Liana Ascolese, Aide to Councillor Mallon and Executive Assistant to the Task Force; Afiyah Harrigan, Mayor’s Office Liaison; Jason Weeks, Executive Director of the Cambridge Arts Council; Geeta Pradhan,

President and CEO of the Cambridge Community Foundation; Katherine Shozawa, Lesley

University; Khalil Mogassabi, Development Director and Chief Planner, Community

Development Department; Lisa Peterson, Deputy City Manager, Peter DiMuro, Executive

Director of the Dance Complex, Kristina Latino, CEO of Cornerscape; Kelly Sherman, visual artist and consultant; Michael Monestime, Executive Director of the Central Square Business Association; David De Celis, Public Arts Commision; Sarah Gallop, Government Relations at MIT; Ben Simon, musician and member of the Cambridge Arts Coalition.

In attendance as guest speakers were Nicole Murati-Ferrer, Chair of the License Commission and Pardis Saffari, Senior Economic Development Manager

Councillor Mallon welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for coming. Tonight’s topic is on licensing and permitting and introduced Nicole Murati-Ferrer, the Chair of the License Commission, and Pardis Saffari, the Senior Economic Development Manager from the Economic Development Department. She stated that almost everyone on the Task Force had referenced the licensing and permitting process as a barrier to arts in her initial phone calls with members to set the agenda of the task force. Artists were asking for clarity and help.

Councillor Mallon wanted to do a quick recap of what the Task Force has accomplished so far. We had a previous meeting on funding where we discussed the 1% for arts ordinance not being capped at $100,000 but instead allocated at the full 1% of the hard construction costs. She stated that Lisa Peterson had a big announcement about this.

Ms. Peterson stated that there was a meeting with the City Council and School Committee regarding the Tobin and Vassal Lane school construction, which is estimated at a total cost of $250 million with construction costs at $200 million. She announced that the City Manager has committed to a full 1% for arts in this project, bringing the total for art to almost $2 million. She stated that in the ordinance conversation there was discussion of an arts fund, so we are not envisioning that the whole $2 million be site-specific to art at the school, but that some of the money would go into an established fund to be distributed as arts-grants for projects in other areas of the City as well.

Councillor Mallon thanked Ms. Peterson for her commitment and announcement. She stated that the City Manager would be looking to the Arts Task Force for guidelines on what to do with the full 1% of the incoming Tobin funding. She informed the Task Force that there would be updates coming shortly regarding allocations from the hotel/motel taxes, and that when we get to the

conversation about the Cultural District, we will be talking about how the City may help support that in a bigger way.

Councillor Mallon stated that last month we talked about zoning in the Cultural District, and that she and Liana were putting together some definitions and zoning language to incorporate into the Cultural District that we’ll be more prepared to talk about at the next meeting. It’s important to get this to the Council so that we’re getting work done and not waiting until the end for recommendations.

Councillor Mallon welcomed Nicole and Pardis again and went over some housekeeping items and meeting procedures including Malia’s Rules to familiarize our guests with them.

Ms. Murati-Ferrer introduced herself as Chair of the License Commission and stated that they issue different types of licenses related to one-day and annual entertainment for businesses under Chapter 138 (alcohol) and Chapter 140 (restaurants and hotels).

Ms. Saffari introduced herself as the Senior Economic Development Manager who helps entrepreneurs and small business owners either get started, grow, come to, or stay in Cambridge. Her department offers workshops as well as educational and technical assistance.

Councillor Mallon informed the task force that she had an initial meeting with Ms. Murati-Ferrer to talk about the needs of artists and arts organizations in Cambridge, and there were a few things that came out of that. There is no one stop shop to encompass artists and everything they need from the Licensing Department, Inspectional Services Department, Arts Council, and more. Other municipalities have this, but in Cambridge it’s hard to navigate especially if you’re new to the system or not used to it. She asked Ms. Latino to kick us off to talk about whether permitting could be more nimble for the arts, particularly for music.

Ms. Latino stated that her organization hosts multidisciplinary, intimate pop-up music events, usually featuring acoustic musicians in Cambridge, Somerville, Boston, and Greater Boston, so she has had a taste of different permitting experiences. She stated that her #1 challenge is getting different answers from different people across departments about what is needed for events.

She stated that if local creative people feel that if what you’re doing is small enough, it’s easier to fly under the radar that seek out the appropriate license, which creates a snowball affect. Artists who try to do the right thing and get a license sometimes find that they have bitten off more than they can chew when it comes to a simple event with 25 people and a guitar.

She stated that we should democratize hosting small, low volume, intimate events and make the process clear for people who only want to host occasional events. These events are better for the City, but organizers have been frustrated when asking about events and getting conflicting answers. There’s a level of confusion even if you’ve been doing it for awhile and you never quite know what you’re going to encounter when putting on an event.

Councillor Mallon stated that many events want to have small music portions but don’t want to deal with licensing, so they just don’t have music and this is a missed opportunity. She asked if anyone else had concerns.