10-22-12: City Hall, at an Arts Town Hall

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Arts-1022.mp3

On Wednesday, October 17th, WYPR's Tom Hall interviewed Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as part of city's annual cultural town hall meeting. The first of these biennial events took place in 2002 during the administration of then Mayor Martin O’Malley. Since then, Baltimore mayors have met with members of the cultural community and citizens interested in arts and culture to exchange ideas about the role the city government can play in shaping Baltimore’s arts scene.

One of the main topics was how to find sources of funding when the economy is in bad shape. Mayor Rawlings-Blake said the city does what it can--but that other institutions are important to maintaining these projects. She also said that people should vote for Question D on the ballot, which would allow the city to borrow money that would go toward "improving cultural life and tourism," and help fund different arts institutions in Baltimore.

The conversation went on longer than the 15 minutes we were able to broadcast--you can listen to the rest of Tom's conversation with the Mayor below (approximately 16 minutes in length). Meanwhile, before the Mayor spoke, Randy Cohen, Vice President of Research and Policy at the national non-profit Americans for the Arts, spoke about the money the arts can bring TO a city. His full speech is also below (22 minutes).

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Town Hall - additional questions

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Randy Cohen speech