Utah Cultural Advocacy Alliance Grade: B+ (87.50%)

  • Candidate Name: Holly H. Daines
  • Your Municipality: City of Logan
  • Elected office for which you are running: Mayor

Question 1: Should government be involved in funding the arts and humanities?
Yes

Question 2: Have you had a personal experience with arts, culture, or humanities that have had an impact on your life?
Yes

3b // Optional, explain your experience.
I was a Founding Trustee of the group that saved the Ellen Eccles Theatre in Logan, a 1923 theatre that was going to be demolished. A group worked to restore it, and it has been a community treasure -- as it was originally -- for the past 25 years since restoration.

Question 3: Do you support public funding for city and county arts councils who then re-grant that money to local arts and humanities organizations?
Yes

3b // Optional, explain why or why not.
Logan City does have small fine arts grants which we distribute annually to organizations in the city. Logan also owns the Ellen Eccles Theatre (the city bought it originally to help facilitate the restoration), However, because of other city needs, we helped the non-profit arts organization who runs the theatre and art center establish an endowment for ongoing operations, and at that time, the annual operating subsidy was discontinued.

Question 4: Do you support Percent for Art programs, which designate 1% of public building costs for public art that are included within that building? Currently, only 8 Utah municipalities have such a program.
Depends (explain in the next question)

4b // Optional, explain why or why not.
Our budgets are so tight, even 1% for art could be difficult.

Question 5: Do you support having a Percent-for-Art program in your own municipality?
Depends (explain in the next question)

5b // Optional, explain why or why not.
I do, but I'm not sure my constituents support that.

Question 6: Do you consider the arts and cultural sector an economic driver in Utah?
Yes

6b // Optional, explain why or why not.

Question 7: 32 municipalities have a RAP (recreation, arts, and parks) type tax to help support cultural organizations in their communities. Would you support a RAP type tax such as this in your own municipality? If your municipality already has such a local option sales RAP-type sales tax and you support it, answer yes.
Yes

7b // Optional, explain your experience.
WE have RAPZ, and our voters overwhelmingly voted to renew the tax after the initial ten year implementation. That is what helped us fund the initial restoration of the theatre.

Question 8: Municipalities can facilitate partnerships between cultural organizations and the local tourism sector to boost the local economy. Do you support this? Optional, explain why or why not. 
Yes

8b // Optional, explain why or why not. 
We already do this. Our Visitors Bureau is great at developing partnerships with the Arts.

Question 9: Municipal governments can create Cultural Districts - with or without tax incentives. Governments sometimes fund these via bed or tourism taxes within the Cultural District boundaries, but it can be done within municipal budgets fairly cheaply. Is this something you would support?
Yes

9b // Optional, explain why or why not. 
We just established a historic theatre district, but there was no fiscal note attached. We have provided signage and parking for the arts district at city expense.