Utah Cultural Advocacy Alliance Grade: D (62.50%)

  • Candidate Name: Mark I. Johnson
  • Your Municipality: Lehi City
  • 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.

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?
Depends (explain in the next question)

3b // Optional, explain why or why not.
I believe supporting our local Arts Council is very important. Public money needs to be spent in full transparency and I am concerned about the term "re-grant." The public would have to understand the situation.

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.
No

4b // Optional, explain why or why not.

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 am unfamiliar with this term "Percent-for-Art". I do believe money should be budgeted for cultural programs and local art.

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.
Depends (explain in the next question)

7b // Optional, explain your experience.
Lehi City citizens voted against the RAP tax. Even though I voted for it personally, I believe the message was that the citizens wanted to see these activities funded differently.

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. 

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?
Depends (explain in the next question)

9b // Optional, explain why or why not. 
I would need more information on this, but I am certainly open to a discussion concerning this possibility.