News

By Mary Hladky

    The creative team behind Delray Beach’s successful Arts Garage is now breathing similar cultural life into Pompano Beach.
    The nonprofit Creative City Collaborative, which launched and manages Arts Garage, was selected by the Pompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency in February to develop cultural programming.
    As in Delray Beach, the idea is that economic development in a blighted downtown can be spurred by cultural programs and events that attract residents and tourists and create demand for more restaurants, galleries and other types of businesses.
    CCC is creating cultural programming for Pompano Beach’s newly renovated Bailey Hotel, now known as Bailey Contemporary Arts, or BaCA, and the Ali Building, a former boarding house.
    Plans call for studios for artists, art and music classrooms, galleries, concerts, plays and more.
    The Arts Garage team began getting word out this spring to artists that studio space is available and began seeking teachers for various arts programs. A summer education program for children also is planned.
    “It was enticing and exciting to see how we can take our cultural muscle and apply it to a different city and county,” said CCC executive director Alyona Ushe.  
    Under the contract with the Pompano CRA, the CCC is being paid $236,000 through September. Ushe anticipates presenting a proposed budget to the CRA in June for the next fiscal year, with the amount still to be determined.
    Chris Brown, who served as Delray Beach’s CRA executive director in 1991-2000, said he asked Ushe to consider responding to the Pompano Beach CRA’s request for proposals in his new capacity as co-owner of Redevelopment Management Associates, the company that runs the CRA.
    “Culture is very important for economic development,” Brown said. “It is not just about cash registers ringing. We think culture is important to contributing to the image of the city.”
    Arts Garage “is sort of a role model for us,” he said. A resident of Delray Beach, Brown said Arts Garage “has done a fabulous job. It has really helped Delray. They are really becoming an arts scene.”
    Brown still has a link to Delray’s CRA. RMA was hired as a consultant by the CRA last year to update its redevelopment plan.
    While hailed by many supporters for what Arts Garage has accomplished in Delray, the program has not been without controversy.
    Last year, the Delray CRA came under fire for funding Arts Garage. Resident Gerry Franciosa challenged the practice, citing his interpretation of an opinion by former state Attorney General Bill McCollum as saying that CRA expenditures must be connected to “brick and mortar” capital improvements, not funding a cultural nonprofit. The CRA budgeted $310,000 to support Arts Garage in 2012-13.
    CRA Executive Director Diane Colonna said at the time it was proper to give CRA money to nonprofits that enhance downtown development.
    State Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, chairman of the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, approved an audit request by state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, and former Boynton Beach CRA executive director Lisa Bright. The state auditor general concluded it was not clear that the funding was appropriate and recommended the CRA board ask Attorney General Pam Bondi for an opinion.
    When the CRA did not do so, Abruzzo did. In a March 11 letter to Abruzzo, Senior Assistant Attorney General Gerry Hammond said the request had to come from the CRA, not Abruzzo. But in additional informal comments, he said that it was up to the CRA to determine whether spending complied with the Community Redevelopment Act of 1969, although the CRA should do a better job documenting that the spending was proper.
    Abruzzo credits Delray’s CRA with doing an “incredible job” revitalizing downtown. The CRA has addressed many of the auditor general’s 19 findings, he said.
    “I personally am satisfied with their work and I do not see any additional inquiries at this time. I wish the CRA a good future,” he said.
    Abruzzo said he has no issue with the expansion of Arts Garage into Pompano Beach. As a result of the audit, “the Delray CRA now has experience in what to do and what not to do,” he said.
    Brown said he never had second thoughts about launching a similar program in Pompano, noting that other CRAs across the state fund cultural projects. “We think spending money on cultural facilities is economic development,” he said.
    Frank Schnidman, a senior fellow at Florida Atlantic University who has set up a CRA in North Miami, has consulted other CRAs and has been involved in redevelopment work since the 1960s, thinks the funding of Arts Garage is permissible and a good way to attract people to a redeveloped downtown. He noted CRAs elsewhere in Florida have funded cultural programs outside the redevelopment district or misspent money in other ways, but no one has taken them to task.
    “There is some political agenda in Delray Beach,” he said. “It smacks of politics, not monies.”
    Broward CRAs have stirred controversy as well. The County Commission has long objected to the agencies, saying they siphon tax dollars that could be better spent on redevelopment projects elsewhere in the county and that they misuse the money.
    In January, commissioners voted not to renew CRAs funded with county tax dollars when they expire. Under that decision, Pompano’s CRA will be out of business in five years — a fact that doesn’t sit well with Brown.
    “Pompano has an extremely blighted community,” he said. “There is no way to turn those communities around without a CRA in charge of it.”
    The city of Pompano Beach and its CRA sued Broward County and the state on May 19, saying the county commission action effectively blocks the CRA from moving ahead with a $9 million bond issue for redevelopment projects that it had approved last year. The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the CRA can continue to operate and issue bonds through 2040.
    Jamie Cole, an attorney with Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza Cole & Boniske in Fort Lauderdale, who represents the CRA and the city, said other Broward cities may join the suit. “We will see,” he said.