At the May 20 East Palo Alto City Council meeting, council members voted three to two to allocate money to several local groups which sponsor cultural programs in the city. Throughout the meeting, Council member Peter Evans argued that the city was functioning improperly as a welfare agency and was misusing taxpayers’ money by supporting community programs sponsored by the city's nonprofit agencies. He stated that the city should concentrate solely on providing municipal services, like fixing the streets. The council ignored his arguments and decided, instead, to establish guidelines it could use to determine future funding for local agencies that request city assistance.
So, what do you think? Do you agree with Evans that the city should focus on providing municipal services only? Or do you believe it is a function of local government to allocate money to social service agencies that need assistance in providing needed community services? You can log in and post your opinion below or you can email your opinion to epatoday@epatoday.org. Either way, we might print your views in EPA Today’s Letter to the Editor column.
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In other cities, the recreation department plans cultural and special events (i.e. festivals based in cultural celebration Cinco de May, MLK, Martin L. King etc) but also plan a more diverse range of events (i.e. snow days, jazz at the park, safety awareness, business expos etc). Unfortantely, this does not happen in our city (to my knowledge) and the recreation department does not lead in planning or coordination these events which lies on the interest and responsibility of non-profit organizations. These activities are important to building community, welcoming new community members, and addressing not just the economic issues of the community but also the celebrate the families and individuals of the community. Our city staff does work in collaboration and partnership with non-profits to create and provide community building activities which is a GREAT STRENGTH. The funds provided by the city show other funders that EPA is invested in celebrating for its community. It also shows that EPA celebrates diversity (although we still need to diversify the special events to address people of a variety of age groups, music styles, activities for young children and families etc).
I would agree with Mr. Evans, if there was a budgetary reason, and I had to choose between cleaning up and maintaining parks and having cultural events. I would choose city services because for example, cleaning and maintaining our parks benefits EVERYONE. But there is a value to community building activities and bring individuals and families out of isolation. So, if it were a budgetary issue, lets focus our budget on areas that benefit the entire community (i.e. maintaining parks, developing recreation, supporting the men and women of city city works department). But if there were no budgetary issues, I do not see any thing wrong with funding cultural based activities. However, I think a criteria needs to be developed and look at other cities and how they fund those kinds of activities so that its equity for the ethically diverse and socio-economic diverse and address the diverse faith and age groups. I also believe that creating a recreation and cultural board as part of the city public committee structure that coordinate those activities and keeping the funds in house.
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