For those that are coming online, because of our technical difficulties, we're going to give it a few more minutes before we start the public comments. For those that are here and make public comment, because we don't think everyone's quite caught up to the technology yet, but we will be calling on you in just a moment. I'm not going to talk to you. So does that mean no comments from the staff?
Or do you want? Well, give me just a second. I'm going to pull up the Excel sheet of applicants that I sent you and we can go. Okay. Okay. But I'm trying to find that now. So give me a second. Oh, you printed it. Handy. Okay.
Because I'm old. I'm coming.
So, Lisa, do you want to come over here for a second and be part of this? Sure. If you go to some of them I go to, I think it'd be handy. I think you went to Riverfest mostly. Do you want to talk about Riverfest?
I went to the Friday night part of Riverfest and everything was... Everything was really good. Everybody did what they were supposed to be doing. I saw the balloon thing, listened to the performers, ate the delicious food that was provided to me. So, it was well attended. Everything was quite on par with what they put out there to do.
Did you go to either of the Caribbean festivals last time? I went to the festival.
Yes.
Like, some of them are new. I'm just asking.
That was a couple years ago, though. Okay. And it was fine.
Okay.
Yeah. I did the Riverwalk trick-or-treat last year. And honestly, it's adorable. Like, there was... How'd you do? You got a big bag. I didn't collect candy or anything, but there was like a two or three-year-old costume contest when I was there. And a local reporter was like talking about all the kids as they came across the stage. It was genuinely really, really cute and funny. And I think that that's like a great event because they provide costumes and the candy. So, I think there were probably some kids in the community who might not get something like that if that event didn't exist. So, I kind of like those things that, you know, maybe help out some of the folks in our community that need a little more assistance. The 4th of July parade downtown, neither of us made it to this year, but I did talk to one of the boat captains afterwards. He said it was like awesome, great fireworks. Apparently, less boats registered, but just like hopped into the boat parade this year.
Kind of hard to believe so.
Yeah, so maybe the only issue for Friends of the Riverwalk is that they weren't going through the proper process, but otherwise sounds like it was a great America 250 event this year. Undead in the Water, Victory Ship, I feel like that one always goes well. And it's good marketing for them, but I think that sometimes, like, the only way people kind of figure out that ship is back there, to be honest.
You've got a huge now Florida designation. Yes.
Yeah, no, thanks. Yeah. That was huge for them. So, you know, and, yeah, so, like, I think that's a good marketing component, that particular event for them.
Can I ask you a question about the boat parade? Is Troy still involved with that?
I'm pretty sure he is.
I was like, I feel like I'm just...
I'm pretty sure he is with Friends of the Riverwalk. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he still is. Okay.
I know Mary Dan's my own.
He runs, he has all the, basically, the pirate water taxi, the Starship.
Okay, so, yes, they're, they're wrong.
If somebody else prepare a water taxi that I'm speaking to, so, yeah, like, it's going well from now. Okay, thank you. Um, Gasper LaCars in the Park, I think it's a wonderful event.
I can tell you, every, every year I go, they have hundreds of old cars all set up in different areas. There's some, uh, activities for children. They do a, um, silent auction. They have some food trucks set up. They have some repayment on the stage. Um, it's always well-attended, um, unfortunately, this year, it started raining. The only time it would rain is during the thing, and a lot of the cars not wanting to get wet. It was a bit earlier than normal. But, in all fairness, everything was well-known, and on, right, everything was perfect with them. And their cars are really beautiful.
Uh, Tame Great Wine and Food Fest is next. They're, I think they do a great event for a year. Fabulous. Um, yeah, also, I think that one is a little higher price tag, but probably draws more tourism. You might know better than I do, but, like.
Where does that, where does that help?
Um, different places. Different places. So, like, the main big event is in Curtis Hickson, but they do, like, Chef Showdown. Uh, they, so they have, like, a few. Multiple days.
Yeah. They used to restaurants. They used to restaurants. They used to Hard Rock for one event. It was.
So, it's, like, over the course of a week at a bunch of different places, really. So, that's kind of a bit. But, the main event is in Doftown, in Curtis Hickson. Uh, Trudy Foundation, just briefly, I've been to this once. Uh, and, like, honestly, it was really pretty cool. Uh, I don't know Indian music that well, but it was, like, an interesting, like, event and venue and kind of experience.
And that's another one who also performs at our venue. And we've also presented at our venue.
So, yeah, you've probably, you've been seeing more work.
Yeah.
Um, the Friends of the Festival.
Has not happened yet this year. Um, I went last year. But I went last year. Yeah. And they always have a, it's a smaller group. It's not like the big film festival. But they have, um, films that are a certain, uh, variety. And, um, their films are well done. Uh, they come out. They have people who are in the films or produce the films, direct the films, video about things. Um, they usually do it at West Shore, AMC, and, um, go smaller.
So, they're not doing it at Tampa Theater there.
Well, well, this one never does. Nobody does it at West Shore. Yeah. Um, they're much smaller. They're much smaller. They're not the gas pool. Yeah. Yeah.
So, uh, we'll go to Indian Festival. Uh, we normally both go to that one. It is huge. It is a very big event. Um, they have, like, tons. The main thing is they're having, like, a dance competition all day. So, like, if you've never been, there are just, like, tons and tons of kids and adults, like, all age ranges doing different versions of Indian classical dance. It's, you know, really cool and interesting. And I'm a huge fan of it.
And then they have the money. And they have the marketplace where you just build it all. Oh, yeah. Fabrics and, like, things you can buy. New clothing you could ever see in your life.
Yeah.
And it's huge.
Yeah, I got a really nice shawl there last week, actually.
I would say 20 to 25% of the rental presentations in our theater are from the Indian community.
You get, like, rudge rock and stuff, too, on there, right? Yeah. Is there another one of them? There are.
I can't. I don't know how many small, not huge, but small Indian classical dance, uh, schools exist. Some probably just out of someone's garage and some out of storefronts. But we could become the Indian cultural center without too much trouble. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
There's a Girl Scout event that is new, so no notes. Uh, McDonald's training center event, that's new. So, also, no notes from us. Uh, the Tampa Taco Fest. We wasn't in our, uh, grant last year. They didn't meet the, uh, the line of funding that we had available. But, previously, it's pretty delicious, so.
And they did say we're at Yvonne this year, which is the same people putting it on. It was, it was good. I went to that, um, got some things, walked around, a lot of people there.
Yeah. And the Taco Fest is a nice activation for Al Lopez, I think. Um, there's another new event, overall AIDS Day concert, uh, the Plant City Page Jam.
Yeah, I went to that, like, I went to that, I went to that, like, I went to that, I went to that. Oh, man, it's, you know, it's Plant City Barbecue. We go for the small point. Is it allowed to people do barbecue?
Or is it the people that do the service?
It's all the service. The Stage was nice.
They had a paint with the normal service.
And it's, like, a cool, like, barbecue competition element.
They take a very serious.
Yeah. That's good. That's good. those as most of the barbecue people do yes they do they take the barbecues until you've gone to memphis in the day you have never experienced a barbecue club speaker i feel like we're going to take all day be doing this um so the the jcc uh i think they have like a bunch of cool events last year i went to uh the film fest and they had like the florida wing band playing they're another one of our grantees like and i'm always like people sync up like that but uh you know it was really well done uh you know so they do a bunch of different interesting things throughout the
year i think you've been having a chef one a chef one i went to a book signing so it it encompasses
like their arts and culture mini fest they they do the different kinds of presentations throughout the year there um they generally seem to go level uh the ruskin seafood festival that's right here
yes we have to talk about that very very crowded um it's at eg simmons park and uh they have made an arrangement with wreck and parks people that they don't charge anybody to come in they don't charge um admission either um like you have to buy tickets for the food um they have entertainment that's very local um have children area vendors to set up with some arts and crafts and different things food the food is of course the main uh draw and they have a truck that brings in maryland crab cakes so i am at heaven for that because i'm a marylander so i also think it's nice when we get some of
these that are a little like geographically not in the same location as normal i always think that's like a nice element of things like the ruskin seafood festival um okay so there's a bonner in the swamp that's new so no notes uh taste of latino festival over here in ivor uh i went to that i think i've been to that like the last two or three years so it's it's good um i like that it's not actually all just live and food this year there was uh an asian uh street food place so like people that do the cuban sandwich yes yes yes yes i'm saying we spent here in ivor and they were
a bunch of great because we used to host it in the college um so that's like during the w yeah
generally seems to go well uh taapa city ballet is here for last september again i actually just love that i think it's an amazing production uh very rooted in the community's history and you know just really high quality and they did that at new tempo and they're repeating it this fall uh one of the the earliest things on our calendar yeah they've also known at the history center the cuban club
so it's it's really it's also going to be not only part of the season but it's also one of the things that closes it not in its entirety but it closes uh one of the nights of our arts fest okay so yeah
it's a really really cool show um and then we have the september 11 12 and 13 you never stop we have the gas for the festival of the arts which i feel like it was just i don't stand by um you know really nice long-standing community event i like to go i actually used to go to that book long before i ever worked here every year so uh i really like that one as well on a personal level i remember
and the posters were chalk chalk drawings and they had to do it down on whiting street because the banks were afraid that somebody might have nude photographs on display no i'm not kidding that's why they couldn't do it on franklin street mall because the banks would not underwrite it and they were afraid that there might be a photographer with photographs with nudity the brain can't make
this up the next one is brand and creative lights which was new last year or lisa went to that
place what second year second like this last year um much bigger this year and they have a vip city area everybody and their brother comes to this thing it's um marching bands or regular folks everybody decks out these their cars and all this um christmas year they have a theme this past year was the grinch um they have a marshall they have i mean it's a once you get there you are there for three hours
uh at least and i think we had like what a couple commissioners yeah yeah usually there's a couple commissioners yeah popular with the bocc as well so we have a pride of tampa festival which is actually like new to us because it's the newly formed pride organization so um there was i don't know what happened so i don't want to speak out of turn but there's a new pride organization in tampa who is trying to uh put on the best so they are the applicant we received this year but since they're technically new to the program i don't really have notes on on what that whole look like um but just to be clear it is it is actually a new applicant um new year's eve for friends in the riverwalk is new for us too so like sounds cool but don't really know uh and then we have the era performance which martini went to recently yes do you want to tell them about era which one we were
just talking about it absolutely amazing i mean i was with my husband and our socks were completely knocked off by i mean it was just unbelievable so um you know good notes on that one that's an annual
event for them obviously it's not the same programming but that come that event comes back
in the spring i believe okay so then we're at rooted door secret spaces so this is the one that actually kind of kicked off this whole uh conversation that we're having now because uh elizabeth asked if there was anything we thought should be funded that that wasn't funded and elisa and patricia were all like that should have been funded so uh i really thought that was amazing it truly is like uh an event where you kind of walk through a door and you're it's immersive and you're immersed in the in the program yes but you're seeing something that is like wildly different and new and nothing like the thing that you just walked out where was that so um it was an epic baptist church it's called i don't know secret spaces yeah so i don't know that it will be in the same venue again because the idea is that it's going to be like in interesting spaces and different venues you don't normally go to so it's sort of a unique production in terms of its location and kind of what it does but it was uh really it was pulled up very well and so we all kind of thought maybe that one should have should have maybe made the list last
time and we actually have someone from the organization yes we will get to the folks who
are actually here to speak on behalf of that's a minute um african arts in the park fest was new for us this last year i went to that and i really liked it as well um i thought it was very well organized they had performers on the stage that they were really good at introducing both before and after the event so that if you wanted to go see that person live again you could actually like find them in the wild find their instagram figure out where they were going to be performing next so it was new for us and but it was it was done really well and it was interesting because it was all like that the flippin wine fest and gasperland music fest were all happening and say more cubana same day same day but like i was talking about just downtown so um it was a very interesting thing because i actually went to all three on one saturday so if you wanted to you could very easily have spent like all day that weekend or the next day that weekend just going to all these different activated spaces around downtown i was just using dash to get around but it was like a really interesting i was going to ask you how you got around yeah but it was a really interesting feeling to just realize that like wow we have all these amazing cool things are all happening at the same time you know so like i think almost every park in downtown tampa had something like interesting and big going on that day um so i thought that was you know just also speaks well to this program that it's like you know we have all these really cool things happening at once sometimes so there's a new thing called a dash for diabetes don't know if it's a new organization new tamper players season
at least i think you went to that last time um i actually have i think i have not been to theirs this year oh okay i'm going to go to andy they load in on saturday yeah so i think our tickets are for the 31st i think i sent it out to everybody um very interesting the tickets let me know um so i'll be going to that but i've been to other presentations of theirs they're really the
rest of their the rest of their season is uh not necessarily in this order come from away uh and uh peter and the star catcher i like that show i think that's actually on the coming up well as far as our season is concerned which is basically the same as academics they're doing that's they're doing yeah there's a third show in there too oh newsies newsies because that's in their application yeah yeah newsies is their third show okay so the order is fall um peter and the star catcher then come from away and then i don't want to see
newsies again so uh the next one is tampa city ballet dance now and like all three of us went to that so but at different times so i will say when i was there earlier i think one of the problems was that it pretty simply like had a serious rainfall so i didn't see many people this is in water works work yeah yeah and it was just sort of like one of those flukes of like you know and just poured and so i think that people had maybe bailed out for a little while and so you know when the weather has been fine the crowd is huge yeah so so it was quiet when i was there but they were both here a little bit later than i was so do you guys want to weigh in on like i personally thought it was disorganized
yeah because i was there to see some specific grantees of mine and i couldn't kind of get when they were going to be there okay i told the organizers could use a little organization yeah
because that's the complaint that i had from that is that i didn't know who was performing at what time there was no um program that you could get to say this group was performing here and they didn't do staging out and the qr code did not work yeah so that little thing but the performers great it's the whole thing okay but that was the little organizational issues okay and they knew that
they they know that we're talking independently that band show is the biggest waste of city money it's so badly designed that were up to me i'd bulldoze it tomorrow and build a new one
it's just awful it was rotary funded there's a rotary flag on it i don't care who's funny i i'm out for
whoever the architect was okay it's not functional for the for the lights and sound exactly i mean it's
just it's it's so it's like why did you do this so you know and then the back wall was wide open and so you can look at all the trucks and the cars i didn't notice that um so okay the next thing was
the zoos event it was their new uh like manatee festival festival that they're doing uh it was cute uh honestly i went with my friend and her kid and uh one of our colleagues from i was there too uh lisa ran into him and so especially like they were giving out little free ice cones and stuff for kids so i think it was a cute little event for you know kids educationally um they talked about
vanities and their in the environment the whole rehab center the whole rehab center was highlighted in it um so and they had some art vendors that did very specific um sea creatures and things like that that they they specialized in doing that kind of work yeah it's something programming that doesn't
normally exist there so that was oh there's not that's a little distracting but i will i think it's ours yeah okay hopefully there's nothing to lose gold for paper um okay so this is a new applicant but in the but the chitlin circuit experience is something that has been previously awarded by this program which is taking place in a different venue some of the same people are involved in it so i'm kind of expecting it to be similar ish to the last one which was really really interesting uh wusf did that and it was just like fascinating historical history about the chitlin circuit and all these you know top amazing performers that came through um and participated in that so it was had a great panel of like expert people about that topic so it was it was really well done the last
time they hit this this time they're doing it in ruskin and the firehouse called yes
so that it's in a different total location yes which again kind of like with it it's a little bit somewhere else um the international french festival is back again this year right down the street yes right down the street um that's usually very cool and funky uh you never really know what
to expect at the french festival um and contrary to one politician's uh it's not a sex festival no
it definitely isn't so yeah i mean i think we kind of all maybe already knew that but um you know it is a it is a really interesting annual event going on for you know a long time and it's based off a scottish one so it's definitely not apparently like anything unsavory and it's rated so if somebody is like cussing or has some sort of dialogue that maybe isn't for kids all of the programming is rated so you kind of know what you're getting into if you go into that room um okay so now we're at human sandwich festival which um you know with well this year other than it was windy so the sandwiches were rolling around a little at one point but like you know people were catching them before
they broke the record again for the biggest smile oh yeah every year
but the biggest problem this year because i've been to many of the others where this was like not an issue but this time it was truly like the weight was a weird factor and uh you know there's some paper plates um okay so miss latina is back um so they have been with us before uh typically that's
like a nice little they they just were in our venue oh yeah okay yeah and uh um one of the best organized well-run events that we that has come into our facility from people that we had no knowledge of it did not know at all it went it went very very well they did a good job yeah i think they do do a good job uh i don't know what their attendance was like because when it's a rental
we don't keep that closer yeah so they're like primarily a beauty pageant but our programming is just like a little community event where they kind of create these displays about like different latin countries and their heritage and they do different traditional dances this was a big production crowning miss latina well yeah yeah so we don't fund the beauty part of it yeah but they do this
community event which is more like well that's as well organized as what they as what they just did
on stage it usually has been it's usually like uh i'll be honest like the first year that i went to go see this i was a little iffy on it because they're a beauty pageant and we don't fund beauty pageants and i wanted to make sure it was not in fact a beauty pageant but it really isn't it really is just like a nice little like cultural community event where they do the traditional dance from each of the locations and they have the displays and that's kind of they dress in a certain way yeah they have their traditional costumes yes so it's a nice actually um and isn't a beauty pattern which is the thing that
matters be um on bikes yeah on bikes we've been for years uh this year they changed it to morning only so they usually had a big concert at night and a big festival at night and they haven't changed it to the morning so they're doing the bike bike ride and then having like a brunch and performances and stuff like that after so like people will go on bike ride then come back uh and enjoy their their own yeah yeah we're getting books so um you know they're going back the morning again this year and they're also highlighting a new report that said we're available but it's not perfect yeah i can't
remember the name gasper la music fest is next they came back this year obviously the event looked like it was going really really well you know people were out there new location um but they still have like you know i think three different stages like normal yeah um so you know it seems like it was it's definitely a different location but it seemed like it was working out um and you know honestly just nice they're back and managed to have the event together this year um and it was really well attended so you know i went and i had a good time uh tropical heat wave i didn't make it this year i didn't make it this year either either right but i could get there but i went the previous year and um honestly i think that was really cool too because they use like every level of the cuban club for different bands and an outdoor stage area so as you kind of walk through you can you can go like experience all these just totally different kinds of music so it's a very unique i think experience of like how do i have that kind of you know it's wmnf right it's wmnf and they program it really well it's
in there as nathan b stubble feeling so that's the founder of mnf yeah yeah i'm just saying that's if
you're looking for it i remember when it was acorn um so centro storiano is in here but it's a new event so i don't we don't really have much for that um gasper international film festival obviously like they're kind of an old standby and they do a really good job putting off a film fest i think sabor cubano um is also in gear that's still a relatively newer one but that's the taco fest people doing their cuban festival um and i read to that like a couple years ago i thought it was like really nice they you know uh dominoes and all the food and i have cigars yeah cars scars very cultural very cuban um and then the last one is general balvazar which is really fun it's really fun they
do it in centennial and they have uh different groups maybe a toddler tap dance group and then older ladies that i could join um we're doing some dancing um they also have tons of vendors of different things for arts and uh food and various things so they they really you like almost every space of that uh that part yeah um and do we want to let the guys i we really
need to move on okay so first of all now we would like to officially welcome all of our fy 2027 applicants that are here with us today uh several of whom have signed up to make public comments a little bit about that the rules for public comment at hillsborough county meetings is first you have to sign up in advance and then speakers are called on in the order that they submitted the sign up form the speaking rules each speaker is allotted up to three minutes to speak and our first public comment is erica jordain on brandon parade of lights are with us eric just a second do you do you know how many we have that
are going to be speaking um one two six six okay for three minutes is erica with us i don't see them
i don't see them on here all right uh we also the next is christian leon from the rooted door i think i see christian yeah christian's on there he is okay so hopefully you can hear him eileen if you'll be the time keeper yeah uh welcome christian hi can everyone hear me i'm barely barely yeah barely i
i've got the volume as high as it goes sorry if you want to come up here you're kind of quiet
interesting yeah hello hello hi everyone we can hear you but speak up okay okay all right i'm reading um something on behalf of of elise so it'll come from her but eileen let me know when are we ready to go oh yeah no you should you can go whenever all right this is from elise pass the founder and creative director of the rooted door organization the organization's mission is to elevate the local arts community by connecting people to our heritage through world-class experiential storytelling our annual immersive events elevate the art scene employ local creators fund art scholarships and support historic preservation as a third tampa as a third generation tampa native this is deeply personal breeded in the legacy of my grandfather manuel alonso through alonso drugs he created a vital gathering place that unified our community the rooted door was founded to continue his legacy of unity through innovation this drives our 2027 submission for secret spaces the synthesis of a city to us an immersive experience means taking the show entirely off stage and placing the audience in the middle of it activating every sense to spark an immediate emotional connection we proved this model works last year inside a historic ybor city church from the ground up we built an imaginative world seamlessly weaving a 1931 ybor city of our factory immigrant stories the jackson house the plant systems train the tampa bay hotel and mr alonso's west tampa's legacy into a single sensory journey that production generated a massive 65 million media impressions and we are targeting the same with the synthesis of a city our model is globally validated the rooted door recently won the international communitas award for social responsibility a global muse award for international creative excellence and earned nominations for florida's prestigious flagler award and won a tampa bay times best of the bay leading the tampa can lead in cultural innovation the synthesis of a city expands the canvas inviting audiences into new tampa historical narratives spanning the scrub the great hurricane immigrant ocean journeys and foundational native american influences this collaboration keeps our brilliant local artists employed right here while protecting our past and we give a percent of our proceeds to the tampa bay community design center to support historic preservation initiatives in the city um manuel alonso taught uh taught me that our community is a family la familia and this project is our love letter to that family an invitation to ignite our living history and show the world that tampa doesn't just chase the cold the future i believe your time's up sorry thank you thank you thank you thank you
and our next public comment i can see is uh dr cal jarai uh from can community help welcome hi good
morning everyone uh good morning to the chair and members of the cultural committee and also happy 139th birthday to the city of tampa uh i'm i am dr cal gadraj and i serve as the senior vice president and chief marketing officer for can community health we are one of the nation's largest non-profit providers specializing in clinical research prevention and treatment of infectious diseases uh specifically in the areas of hep c scis and hiv we are headquartered our national headquarters is in tampa in the historic eboard district some of you may be familiar with the old german american social club uh nebraska we uh took that over um prior to the pandemic and did the historical um renovation of that now serves as our headquarters and also our clinic space as well but i want to thank you all for the opportunity to speak to you in support of our 2026 world aids day concert uh that we started last year in tampa and we're looking to continue this year again uh for those of you who are aware world aids day is observed globally each year on december 1st uh it's a time to remember those we've lost honor those that living with hiv and also recommit ourselves to ending the national epidemic by the year 2030. while we've made tremendous progress the work is far from over thousands of florians continue to be diagnosed with hiv and stis every year and that stigma remains one of the greatest barriers of preventing people from seeking testing prevention and treatment our vision for this concert is to use it as a universal language of music to inspire hope promote education and bring our community together around a common purpose last year we produced our inaugural world aids day concert which we were proud to feature broadway stars adam pascal and anthony rapp who were the original mark and roger from the broadway musical rent uh which was really exciting uh this performance in tampa not only demonstrated the power of combining arts culture and public health to reach audiences in meaningful ways we also welcomed individuals from across the community and also many who i personally met in tampa from fort myers from sarasota that even drove over from orlando um you know these are people who came into tampa stayed in tampa you know ate restaurants in tampa so the economic impact of this was absolutely incredible but for us this is just much more than a concert um this is for us is a cultural event that celebrates the resilience of our community it also showcases tampa as a city that values inclusion of the arts and reminds us that creativity has always played an essential role in advancing public health and social change so support from this committee would help us continue building a signature annual event not only that enriches tampa's cultural landscape but also creates measurable public benefit through education awareness tourism and community engagement at ken community health we believe that the arts have the unique ability to bring people together spark conversations and bring down stigma in ways that few other platforms can when we combine culture with purpose we
create experiences we change lives thank you so much thank you okay our next public comment is
regina brown from tampa city ballet good morning and thank you my name is paula nunez uh founder and artist director of tampa city ballet and thank you for the opportunity to speak today and for the continued commitment to support in the arts in hillsborough in hillsborough county when i founded tampa city ballet my vision was to create a professional ballet company that would become a lasting cultural asset for our community creating opportunity for local dancers and artists enriching the lives through performance education innovation innovation and collaboration um today thanks in part to your support that dream is becoming a reality um last season we served nearly 8 000 audience members provide more than 1 000 complimentary tickets and create professional opportunities for all the artists dancers choreographers musicians designers educators and arts administration we are especially proud of several important milestones for this new season and regina will tell you more about good morning panelists and fellow
applicants so this year tampa city ballet is um has advanced to phase two of the national endowment um for the arts grant this year so we're super excited about that one and that reflects a growing national recognition for the artistic excellence um that's been created right here in hillsborough county we are working now to establish former partnerships with the university of south florida which creates new opportunities for student internships workforce development artistic research and community engagement in addition we are building long-term collaborations with the museum of fine arts in saint pete the museum of photographic arts and the new tampa performing arts center which are posed to expand the artistic innovation education and cultural tourism throughout our region our four programmatic pillars are folding original works that include la septima family productions our annual dance now festival and era emergent and resident artists which is a great platform for new and emerging and professional artists our educational initiatives continue to connect professional artists artists with audiences of all ages while celebrating not only the history but the diversity in the creativity of tampa bay every public dollar investing in tampa city ballet creates opportunities far beyond the stage it supports local artists strengthens our creative economy expands access to the arts attracts additional public and private investment and enhances the quality of life throughout hillsborough county thank you so much to the panelists for believing in the power of the arts and for your continued support and feedback we are honored to represent hillsborough county on both the state and national stages and we look forward to growing and improving that impact together thank you thank you thank you and our final public comment is from
pamela viran from tampa jcc's and federation inc welcome hi good morning and thank you i appreciate
the opportunity to share a few highlights of the tampa jcc's and federations arts and culture programming we're so grateful to the hillsborough county arts cultural arts commission and for its previous support of our organization's programming um your investment has helped us helped us to create meaningful cultural experiences that educate inspire and connect our community our organization believes that the arts are a powerful way to bring people together as i'm i'm sure everyone in the room agrees and through our book and film festivals year-round film series live performances and student art competitions and the subsequent visual art exhibitions uh we welcome thousands of people each year from across hillsborough county and beyond these programs do more than enrich cultural life they support our local economy by generating business for uh venues restaurants hotels caterers bookstores printers and other small businesses while also creating paid opportunities for authors filmmakers artists and performers perhaps most importantly our programs create spaces where people of different faiths cultures and backgrounds can connect through storytelling and shared experiences at a time of increasing division and rising anti-semitism these opportunities to build understanding empathy and meaningful relationships are more important than ever we're especially especially excited about the excuse me continued growth of our shine a light on anti-semitism student arts for impact program the real to real documentary and out on screen film series which are helping us reach new audiences and broaden community engagement um thank you so much for your time today we really appreciate your your consideration um of our proposal um and through your partnership together we can support the arts as a catalyst for connection education and community thank you thank you thank you thank you very much
uh we appreciate everyone that came today to make public comments we also appreciate the applicants that came just to observe and listen we're now going to return to our next agenda item but thank you all so much for being with us okay the next item we're going to talk about is senate bill 1134 which was signed into law on april 22nd 2026 we uh still have no uh ruling from the county attorney's office as to how to interpret this or what exactly we need to do to uh to uh be in compliance uh penalties for elected officials uh uh not for things not in compliance from pretty um pretty strict um i actually was in a statewide phone conversation with all the local arts designated local arts agencies in florida uh last week we were talking about this as well as the next thing we're going to talk about um we just the actual language is so murky i mean you can't really say in one part of it it looks like it's like it can't be an event that's about one nationality that's it's more than just dei but all we are getting to figure out what we're going to do so we it's it's a timing issue because we have to take whoever you guys choose in september that then has to go in october on the bocc agenda and be voted on by the board of county commissioners and we can't really know if we're in compliance with this well until what the county attorney tells us something and we're just sort of in limbo right now but uh it is something that we need to be aware of because there may we don't know if maybe something as easy as just everyone has to sign off that there's an extra piece of paper with a grant agreement where they have to sign off they're not doing this this this i hope it would be something as simple as that but we really don't know at this point so even though we are taking accurate this goes for the arts council as well as the cultural assets commission we're a little bit in limbo and the clock is running uh we just yes i mean i don't think it's gonna be that simple um
because not only does it allow the governor to remove elected officials um if an event is in reference to wrong ethnicity but it also gives anybody in the county a cause of action to sue the county and get attorneys abused okay so but i think there are a couple issues here um i mean that i don't think that ultimately ultimately this is gonna have to be decidedly courts because there's constitutional there's supreme court decisions one says you can't make public funding opportunities contingent on ethnicity another one says that you can't regulate the content of speech during praise so the state law is basically saying you have to regulate the content of speech during grades and you know what if you're not on that exempt ethnicity list then i mean so there's like a real conflict there um the only request i have is that in terms of what this commission does i think that i mean this would be a request maybe for the county attorney is i don't think that i think that we should score all these applications um based on whether or not they qualify on on current criteria and then if the county decides if the county attorney decides that some of these don't qualify um then they can make that clear to the county commissioners and they can be the ones that have to decide whether or not they're going to support them um i have a huge problem with this law and i and i think there should be a record that everybody has that these events are scored without reference to ethnicity and all these other categories and then it can be up to other people um how to interpret it later i don't think i mean some of the events that we are at list would clearly violate the law but i don't but i want to score their application fairly regardless of that at the end of the day this law is not going to stand well and the law is not currently in effort right now so like 2027 to
be clear i think what you're describing was sort of the plan already is just you guys score it and we'll deal with whatever advice we're given from the attorneys later and the law also exempts volunteer
boards so the malfeasance and the lawsuits don't apply to volunteer boards so
do we have arizona emissions coverage i'm just curious
so anyway yes as far as scoring just we've got the guidelines you use the proof we score just like we own but it's just something to be yeah i mean we'll figure out based on guidance my my concern
though is that there's a review done before we got the application and then suddenly we're told like 10 of these applications don't qualify because of this law and that's not i don't know well we've
already done staff reviews so like they're like that part is over you guys have the applications that are eligible based on what our current criteria are and given no guidance yet we we have not removed
anybody yet i think you're probably wise i don't think we can we can score based on what what might
happen yeah yeah yeah just is not meant to change the way you're sorry it's just that's good yeah and uh the uh next thing i wanted to talk about is i'm just full of sunshine the potential impact of the elimination of property tax funding on arts funding in florida so this in this state and venue funding in this state meeting these are all the counties arts from all the counties and everyone is really nervous that what will be mostly be affected is arts libraries uh parks and recreation and uh it's anyway so that's coming up in november and the county they already brought tom fessler came before the county and has already said um salary freezes and hiring freezes and replacement hiring freezes and it's a huge huge chunk of money um so that's kind of on the horizon too and you know all the arts leaders are all very concerned about it we're understaffed as it is and it's been implied
to me that if this goes through and one of my staff members need that they will not be replaced so that's
all going i will tell you i went to the americans for the arts conference i leaned into in albuquerque in early june and was in some very interesting conversations when people were saying oh this is happening where i am this is happening where and i got the fries nobody wants in florida right now that's in in the arts so i made everybody else feel much better
you are aware so it could be worse you could be in florida so anyway we just there's so much unknown
around all of this i i just wanted to make you all uh aware of that and and we're a precinct so
people will be coming and voting on this see north here assuming you have to step open the thought is that the thought has been that we put a sign on the door this is brought to you by your property taxes
so about this set of applications i want to let you 52 organizations applied for fy 2027 funding 45 met eligibility criteria and seven did not i communicate directly with everyone that did not and point to the exact reason and the eligibility criteria that made them deemed ineligible three did not provide a 990 in any form or ballot sheets two provided the 990 postcard which did not in itself make them ineligible but they had other issues that did one could not provide an irs letter of determination and this is kind of a new thing two organizations were affiliated with churches or religious connections and we can't support anything religious or political and um and of those one submitted the 990 postcard and the other submitted no 990 whatsoever um and one submitted an event
happening in brownwood county yeah things was really be tough in brown i i want to bring up something
so when i'm going through this and virtual reality mary this is going to be trying to look at the event
budget and look at financial when there's no form 990 or form 990 ez when it's just the postcard if you have nothing to it and this is for organizations who with revenues less than fifty thousand dollars and i'm i'm i just think the commission as you're scoring things as you're looking things just think about whether we should continue to accept that one of the organizations that's applying uh currently eligible for the 990 postcard is requesting seventy five thousand dollars and citing 225 000 as their projected revenue for the project and you know it's just if you've got the 990 ez makes it easier for people but you still get some solid the 990 postcard as usual another is requesting forty four thousand five hundred dollars another one's requested twenty one thousand twenty one thousand seven hundred to fourteen dollars and then the final postcard applicant is requesting a respectable five thousand dollars from which you know if it's fifty thousand dollars in revenues they can't possibly be serious that's fine but the other thing is for that project if they applied for the arts council community arts impact grant which santiago's uh lovely wife receives they could get five of it and they the postcard would be fine because we have it scaled so that that's the only one where we accept the postcard because it's for new and emerging orders yes can i ask a new question sure um no matter what they apply for can we award them
less do what can we can we award them less do what can we can we award them less live form it's yes like let's say we got a thousand or fifty yeah you know we can we can we can decide i would say that's probably
the norm or it's based on your story it's based on your story it's based on your story okay
if you would like and the reason i'm bringing this up i just you know we're not voting on anything we don't have uh but as we're looking next year this is something we might want to start
thinking about just that i'd like to interject one little comment into this though which is that people already filed their 990s for this year so if this were to go in in fact i'd like to suggest we not do it until 2028 so that people are given the opportunity to know that this is happening and get in compliance file the right 990 and then be able to apply it but the time to start talking
about it soon and the other thing that factors into this is this organization went for when this grant first started it never used up all the money if if you are we're we're past that we are going to give every cent away and some people are not going to get funded and it's okay that's why we score that's why it's ranking but it's uh you know that's just something else to consider we're not hurting for applicants um but you know as you as you're going through and you're looking at everything look at the ones with 990s 998 ez's and the postcard and i i'd just be thinking about it and when we start thinking about it for next year well i'll put this in the minutes and then we'll do just keep i was i was going to suggest that if there's any way that we can bring it forth at a later date so that we make sure that we discuss it that will be consistent so yes before this will go there but i just wanted to sort of plant the idea of wow everyone's looking at the application martine and
eileen or kathy or lisa i'm having a lot of senior moments so i know some meetings ago we discussed how to handle the grants that you're evaluating if you have to recuse yourself remind me please
not scoring okay no just don't do anything tell me your list i'm sorry tell me your list and i can
remove you from scoring so you're not recorded as being zeros you're being recorded as no yeah we
can just take okay so if they're on there i just won't if they still stay on my list i'll just say no
send them literally send them to those you can't do okay and tell us who they are
we make it so useful further question because some are very apparent that there's a conflict right from the book some on the board provide funding that's clear um what if again not to complicate matters but i want to know because i want to do it right um if you write a letter of support if if our organization writes a letter of support for someone applying or my wife's organization writes a letter of support that's part of the package that is coming to us to evaluate do i recuse myself from those that's why i was having a hard time going through what obviously i know which ones i'm on the board and i can't do anything but then my wife's on board or we're writing letters of support we're not on the board because we're visit tampa bay so or because she's danced tampa bay so what's the answer
maybe tell them let them decide tell who well so here is how it's handled with one of the arts council board members because she does write a letter of support for an arts organization uh this is meg from city of tampia and and she recruises herself from that one because she's written a lesson okay what about
spouse i'm not sure that your spouse i don't think you're i don't like to make this that's not like
part of our guidelines or anything okay because we have organizations that are very engaged in the community and we're being asked for letters i mean i don't know how many letters we write from visit tampa bay to support grants of all types not just for this commission but national dominant of the arts this one that and the other uh and dance tampa bay my wife's organization does the same thing and we
want to make sure we don't we don't mess and i get in a similar situation i've i've written two kinds of letters i've written letters for organizations stating that yes we are holding the following dates for you that that was needed for whatever grant that they were applying for and i have written a sort of a generic uh letter of recommendation for one organization that i have no idea what the grant was
that they were applying for my two cents is if it's for this grant and you've written a support letter then that's a conflict that's the same but if it's for the nea or it's some other brand
right if there's something you don't know and i'm going to find out how many letters we've written
that's for you personally that's your spouse right now but my my spouse is the chair of one of the
boards of one of the grant applications how do we look at that yeah i mean how much influence
yeah like how would you have one oh i have no influence on my own so yeah i don't think i think
your spouse has conflicts yeah yeah not you personally like yeah so i just would would take anything that is a concern about your spouse out of your concerns period i will tell you i just went
through this it may help or may not help but i was on the board of friends who ever walk so i disclosed that and i did personal donations to desk for a little music festival and one of the other athletes and wmf i did personal uh donations i just told you it says conflict right actually recorded that yeah so that's that's what i i just let i let you decide i'll tell you what i what i what might be what
might you perhaps contain like this and you can decide i removed you from those so you'll see you'll
not see them to school and i think it's fine thanks to your spouse is involved in well things you're on the board for me take you off of if you let us know okay and i also just wanted to mention you like saying you're renting to new tamo players that's not that's just confirmed yeah that's just
like information we need i'm not sure what grant it is but some grant they needed a letter saying that in fact that we were holding dates for them or their soccer might be with taco and there was something in that oh it's more than just with taco well i think you did that recently actually for a
even request for new table players because they have to have like evidence of securing menu oh okay so sometimes like i don't know what they're using it for yeah so like it might not even been the grant application like sometimes we just need to have like evidence that like yes
yes my guess is that the county has a pretty clear definition of what a conflict of interest is and it's probably um you know it always surprises me what's not a conflict of interest if you're not i mean based in the rules if you have a direct financial benefit i.e you own a restaurant and the event's renting from you right then it's a conflict if the event's happening outside in the same block and your restaurant's packed and busy comes in that's an indirect conflict you don't have a conflict of interest but it really is is there money going in your bank and that seems what this and i think i mean i think writing letters is of course not really a conflict of interest and maybe even serving on a board isn't if you're not getting a direct financial benefit from it so i think we should just stick to whatever the county's definition is
that it's actually our definition i was just saying i think we actually just made our conflict of interest more strict in this conversation than it is on paper with the county which is essentially that you can't make money off of whatever we're doing here um well in that case i'd like to think
about you know but i obviously yeah i mean you're donating it's not it's not i just want to be i want
to be upfront about it and yeah and get an opinion but we appreciate it but technically like on the
based on the actual literal definition which is what he just said like that can we maybe revisit that
yeah yeah back in that's not a problem you obviously believe in it or i wouldn't have donated
they also like this law is not only about like when you shouldn't vote the laws to force people who serve on a border commission to vote on everything because if you serve on it you you have a duty to vote so people can't get out of voting on a tough vote because yeah yeah but if you
just record it to us yeah we'll take care of it yeah yeah okay whichever way you go just let us know
that's partially the reason i think our spouse is
and letters we bring that's it that's all i'm on and letters visit right yeah
send those to you yeah and i'm sure nothing against tampa bay is doing is putting money in your wallet so that's why i'm like i don't i doubt anything that is going on please it's not costing you
it they say i made my philanthropic effort
i think it's costing you money going back a few steps when you mentioned one of the applicants didn't
have uh didn't submit their letter of determination which could be for a number of reasons like they can't find it do do we ever go on the irs website and see if they're actually listed there yes oh
because the letter of determination doesn't mean that they are still an active non-profit currently so actually we go through and we check that no back one every time yeah we've had a couple of people
in that particular instance this is an organization that ran into this problem last year and they were told you go ahead and get it might and get a copy so that you have it next year and they still don't
they still don't know so they get knocked down on the on the basis of uh they're not what they're doing
i love that one of the organizations that was disqualified they're doing uh martin luther king one it's a church service and it's in the church and they're arguing with me there's nothing religious
in that it's a church service yeah the problem was they called it like an interfaith service they talk about praying and like the application is is very clear than it is religious in nature so they could have done sort of a secular we can pay event we get people historically that won't tell them we
need their letter of determination as a tax example they'll send in a florida state sales tax oh yeah they do that and they do not understand the difference they do that they do not understand
yeah we get all kinds of really interesting things that are definitely not an irless letter of determination like that's what happens to you volunteer boards hey i have a luncheon
meeting i know you do and you have breakfast and something you need to get out of it you're wearing
secret thank you michael michael this is patricia i just wanted to welcome you to the team and
introduce myself oh hi thank you i appreciate it all right bye everybody thank you patricia