By Tom McClimon
March 19, 2007

Providence Mayor David Cicilline testified on behalf of the Conference of Mayors before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior at a hearing March 13 that was part of national Arts Advocacy Day. This Congressional hearing was the first hearing on arts funding before the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee in 12 years.

Also testifying at the hearing were: Wynton Marsalis, Artistic Director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center; Dr. Sheila Johnson, co-founder of BET Television; Chris Klein, acclaimed actor; Robert Lynch, President and CEO, Americans for the Arts; and James Raisbeck, CEO of Raisbeck Engineering.

“It is truly an honor to testify on behalf of America’s mayors on the importance of investing in the arts,” said Cicilline. “Arts programming is a critically important economic development tool for cities across the country, and here in Providence the arts and cultural scene has become the envy of the region with more arts organizations and artists per capita than any other city in New England.”

Cicilline called upon Congress to support full funding for the National Endowment for the Arts with a budget of $176 million. “Each year for the past twelve years, the United States Conference of Mayors has unanimously adopted policy resolutions on the arts, steadfastly calling for Congress to increase and fully restore NEA funding. Such an increase would help us build our communities, design our cities, and spur our economies. It would contribute enormously to the quality of life. It would encourage city councils, as well as foundations and corporations, to increase their own contributions. Hundreds of mayors around the nation have in turn promulgated these resolutions in their own cities.”

The mayor also praised the work of the Mayors Institute on City Design program, which is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts along with the American Architectural Foundation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “Since its creation over 20 years ago, the Mayors Institute on City Design has brought together mayors, architects and city designers to help implement a vision for their cities in the best possible way. This incredible program, led by the great visionary mayor of Charleston (SC) Joe Riley, has found a way to reconnect cities to their waterfronts, highways, new civic buildings and tree-lined boulevards to create a better living environment for its citizens, or in the case of disaster-hit areas, help rebuild their communities. The Mayors Institute on City Design is based on one simply premise: that in American cities, design matters,” Cicilline said.