This story is about the arts and how greed and fear of losing
political power by county supervisors, and others, doomed what was
becoming a ray of sunshine for San Benito County residents.
”
What’s in it for me?
”
is the phrase that most often puts an end to good ideas in this
county and it was this very phrase that was used to put an end to
the idea of a Center for the Arts in San Benito County. Are you
curious who said it? I can and will tell who said it because I had
a witness with me on that fateful evening. By the way, this same
line was used on several other non-profit groups during the same
time period.
This story is about the arts and how greed and fear of losing political power by county supervisors, and others, doomed what was becoming a ray of sunshine for San Benito County residents.
“What’s in it for me?” is the phrase that most often puts an end to good ideas in this county and it was this very phrase that was used to put an end to the idea of a Center for the Arts in San Benito County. Are you curious who said it? I can and will tell who said it because I had a witness with me on that fateful evening. By the way, this same line was used on several other non-profit groups during the same time period.
Before I tell you this story about the arts, let me preface it with a reminder of why I write these columns and to make it clear that I don’t belong to any secret group. I write because I feel everyone has the right to know what is really happening in our community.
A few months ago, I wrote about the efforts of several powerful elected officials to silence me. By far, the most popular method of intimidation is to fabricate stories in the weekly tabloid and then present them as facts to the public.
In one of my columns, I described this method as a whack job carefully orchestrated by several individuals to insure no one else dare try to expose the absurdities that go on in San Benito County government.
Then why, you may ask, am I willing to put my reputation on the line? What’s in it for me? Nothing! But by exposing the truth, then maybe we as a community can get to work on planning for the future, rather than continually reacting to the past.
Now let me tell you the true story of what happened to the dream of a “Center for the Arts” for our community. It was a big and beautiful concept that would have brought jobs, entertainment and tax revenue to our county. In other words, a reason for all of us to spend our dollars locally, rather than out of town.
The plan was big, and I’ll concede to that, but several smaller communities, including Morgan Hill, have made similar projects succeed. After all, why should we as SBC residents always have to settle for second or third best?
Community support for the idea of a Center for the Arts was strong and during our first fund-raiser, several hundred people came out to support it. The comment I heard most often that night was, “Finally, something we can be proud of.”
The City of Hollister, excited about the potential of downtown being revitalized, provided a loan to study the feasibility of the Center for the Arts project, which I personally guaranteed and promised to pay back whether the results were positive or negative. By the way, the completed study proved there was a need for an arts facility the entire community could use and enjoy.
As plans for the Center kept moving forward, a huge wave of negative stories began appearing in The Pinnacle newspaper. The main theme being that the Center was being built so I could profit from the extra business the Center would provide to the downtown area.
What wasn’t reported in The Pinnacle was the meeting I had with the publisher, Ms. Cone, a week before the negative smear campaign began on the Center for the Arts. During the meeting, I asked for her help and positive support from the newspaper in order to make it a community project. The response I received was quite shocking.
“What’s in it for me?” Ms. Cone asked, to which I replied, this project isn’t about you or me, it’s about the future of the community.
What Ms. Cone meant by “what’s in it for me,” I don’t know, but I knew it couldn’t be good. Then Ms. Cone turned to me as she walked out the door and said, “Then I can’t support it.”
It wasn’t long after that meeting that the county supervisors went to work on pulling the plug on what was left of the state-sponsored arts program in the county. Citing losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the supervisors and The Pinnacle claimed a full state investigation was being conducted on the so-called “fraudulent activities” of the person in charge of the program.
The true story was again completely different to what was being reported in The Pinnacle. The county never lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, they never contributed any money to the program.
All that was required of the county to get a reimbursement from the state was to turn over the receipts for the costs incurred by the arts commission. After laying all the blame on the arts commissioner for the delay in turning in the receipts to the state, the county forgot to do the same thing.
Months later, the person in charge of the state arts program called me to ask why the county wasn’t returning her phone calls and that if they realized the following day was the last day to be reimbursed from the state. I quickly made phone calls to several of the supervisors about the problem and to inquire about the future of the arts program in the county.
One of the supervisors, angry at me for not doing business with one of their family members, made the future of the arts very clear to me with this comment, “If we provide funding for art programs, people will eventually want an arts center. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with that damn library.”
The question shouldn’t be why I write my letters, it should be why more of you don’t.
Ignacio Velazquez can be reached at ig**************@ho*****.com
