It’s hard to get people in Aspen to vote, former mayor Mick Ireland said at the “Pizza for Arts” campaign event on Tuesday.
Looking over the modest-sized crowd, Ireland added, “Just the people in this room could make the difference.”
With the Nov. 2 election just around the corner — an off-year election, nonetheless — Ireland stood among a passionate group of local arts leaders who are asking city voters to say “yes” on ballot measure 2A, an amendment to the Aspen Municipal Code regarding the Wheeler Opera House’s real estate transfer tax, commonly written as WRETT.
While continuing the use of the WRETT to benefit and protect the Wheeler Opera House, passing 2A would allow WRETT funding to support additional cultural, visual and performing arts organizations, including operations at the Red Brick Center for the Arts, without raising taxes or extracting from the Wheeler’s current $40 million cash reserve.
Passage would also lift the fund’s current $100,000 cap on arts and culture grants. According to the ballot language, support from at least 60% of those who vote on the measure is required for 2A to pass.
The “Aspen for Arts, Arts for Aspen” campaign recently was formed to advocate for the arts-and culture organizations working to reach that 60% threshold. The campaign is made-up of local citizens and nonprofits whose members create and support local arts. Some of the involved organizations include the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen Film, the Aspen Institute and Theatre Aspen.
“Aspen for Arts, Arts for Aspen” and the Aspen Art Museum co-hosted “Pizza for Arts” on Tuesday, a free and public event held at Aspen Pie Shop that brought voters together to share information about ballot item 2A.
Beginning a little after 5 p.m., people gathered in a laid-back, relaxed setting to enjoy free pizza and drinks. Employees of the Aspen Art Museum passed around stickers and flyers and members of the Pitkin County Democratic Party handed out cards with candidate recommendations for the upcoming election, which included a “yes” recommendation on 2A.
A small group of local community leaders spoke on the proposal and answered questions from the crowd. Aspen Art Museum Director Nicola Lees kicked off the discussion with a brief introduction, followed by Cristal Logan, vice president of community programs and engagement at the Aspen Institute.
Logan emphasized the importance of passing 2A in terms of its would-be effect on locals. The removal of the WRETT fund’s current $100,000 annual cap on arts and culture grants would allow for more local-concentrated programming and provide greater opportunities for community priorities, campaign supporters are punctuating.
“All of the organizations that are helping to get out the word are all organizations in town that create community programming for locals — that’s at the heart of what we all do,” Logan said.
Ireland continued the conversation, pointing out some of the influential programs in the Roaring Fork Valley that were birthed from grants, including the “The Buddy Program.”
“You never know what kind of wonderful thing will grow out of a small seed grant, and that’s what this [2A measure] is about,” Ireland said.
Ireland also discussed the Wheeler Opera House’s historic infrastructure, providing context around the 1979 WRETT statute. He mentioned the building’s instability (“hence the scaffolding across the street”), reiterating that the Wheeler’s $40 million cash reserve would not be touched if the measure passes and future WRETT funds are used for local arts programming.
“It was pretty clear at the outset that when I was here, the idea was not to preserve a building to look at, but a building that would promote art in the community,” Ireland said. “And that is fundamentally what we’re trying to do, the smaller part of the fund will go to our arts groups and culture, and the larger part of the fund will go to building preservation.”
To close out the conversation, a newer member of the local arts community took the floor. James Merle Thomas, executive director of the new Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies at the Aspen Institute, asked for a show of hands inquiring who in the room has invested in the arts or attended events pertaining to the arts in Aspen in the last year or two.
Nearly every person in the restaurant raised their hand, including the bartenders and customers who were not there specifically for the event.
Thomas went on to make his point about the strong-held history and importance of arts and culture in Aspen and the region, expressing how fortunate he feels to be entering this vibrant community and building the new Bayer Studies Center at this exact moment.
“The center is more than just a dusty shrine to an old white European artist, right, it’s also about the present and the future of where art and design are taking us,” Thomas said. “What Mick was saying about this idea of grants and thinking about how these anchor institutions like the Wheeler, like Red Brick, like the Institute, like Aspen Art Museum … that’s what we want to be doing. We want to be taking this kind of grant money and turning it around and leveraging it against broader community-based initiatives that are enriching everything that we are doing.”
Sam Harvey, owner of the local Harvey Preston Gallery and one of the honorary co-chairs of the “Aspen for Arts, Arts for Aspen” campaign, provided an interview during the event. Harvey emphasized how he moved to Aspen in the early 1990s for the town’s culturally rich community and sophisticated arts scene.
“We have more arts organizations than most other minor cities and even some of the major cities,” Harvey said. “There’s just a vortex of creativity that I want to make sure lives and keeps building stronger, richer, smarter community.”
One argument against the passage of 2A involves concerns about greater arts and culture programming attracting more tourists to the already-infiltrated town. In line with Logan and Ireland’s points about the ballot measure’s local significance, Harvey maintains that this is much more for community and smaller-based events and activities that outside tourists wouldn’t attend anyway.
“Those people are already coming into this town, that barn door is already open. It is too late to close that door and say that giving more money to the arts will bring more people — that’s ridiculous,” Harvey said. “Passing this could bring more arts classes, performances, what-have-you for the people and kids who live here, who’ve been living here for a long time.”
Other controversies surrounding 2A include the city council’s divided vote to place it on the Nov. 2 ballot and general concerns about rushing it in lieu of waiting until fall 2022, which could allow more time to build voter support.
Regardless, in an off-year, high-stakes election, local citizens and arts leaders are doing what they can to highlight 2A’s potential impact on the arts-and-culture community, striving to reach the 60% requirement.