On Tuesday, Lubbock’s City Council upheld its decision to cut funding from the First Friday Art Trail, after weeks of backlash and calls for reconsideration from some who believe the cut signals a lack of support for the queer and art communities.
On July 23, District 3’s city council representative David Glasheen singled out the art trail from a list of 30 local arts projects to receive public support. Glasheen said he believes tax dollars should not be used to promote family activities that include LGBTQ+ themes, calling them “not appropriate.”
Mayor Pro Tem Christy Martinez-Garcia and Councilman Gordon Harris brought forward a resolution to restore the $25,600 in funding for The Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts to spend on marketing, security and a trolley service for the art trail, as part of the Cultural Arts Grant Program that provides more than $500,000 in hotel-occupancy tax dollars to promote tourism and cultural arts in Lubbock.
Citizen Comment
Before Tuesday’s vote, more than 50 citizens came to express comments on Tuesday’s agenda items. After four days of budget workshops, members of Lubbock’s city council presented new budget proposals and tax rates; suggestions for a new street bond on the November ballot; discussions over the future of Godeke Public Library, where the lease is due to expire; and the resolution to restore city funding for the art trail.
Jim Douglass, the Board President at Civic Lubbock, Inc., signed the June 26 letter that gave approval for the art trail and 29 other projects, including three others with LHUCA, to receive Cultural Arts Grant Program dollars.
Douglass spoke first to the council in Tuesday’s meeting at Citizens Tower in downtown Lubbock, remarking on the benefits that the art trail and Louise Hopkins Underwood’s legacy have given to Lubbock, and why the organization deserves the city’s support.
“The Underwood family, who is represented around the room here, did us a great favor years ago when they helped create the Underwood Center for the Arts,” Douglass said.
Louise Hopkins Underwood was born in Houston in 1919 before moving to Lubbock after World War II. Underwood started with the Lubbock Regional Arts Center in 1997 to support West Texas artists, before it was named after her as the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts, or LHUCA, in 2004.
According to Texas Women’s University, Underwood was a founding member of the Texas Alliance for Education and the Arts, and the Lubbock Cultural Arts Commission.
“Talk about bragging rights. It's one of the jewels of our community,” Douglass said. “And the First Friday Art Trail, that is part of that, is obviously something that we feel very strongly about, and you're already getting a larger dose of that today.”
Underwood’s grandsons spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. David Henry said he was comforted by the community support that the controversy has brought to LHUCA.
“Obviously, I want to reinstate funding for LHUCA, but that's all I wanted to say," David said. "And then I got here, and I realized that I need to thank you, because what you've done is you've brought a ton of attention to LHUCA, and if grandma was here, she would be so appreciative of that, I promise you.”
David Henry’s brother, Rob, spoke after him.
“I just moved back, so I don't have to be as nice as he is,” Rob began, expressing his thoughts on street proposals and supporting Lubbock public libraries before he gave his thoughts on the art trail decision, and how he thinks his grandmother might have responded to the council’s decision.
“You guys should be thanking people like LHUCA, CASP, the Buddy Holly Hall, and the entire Arts District for what they've done to revitalize downtown,” Rob said. “Offering to help them, offering them discounts, not treating them like this. As both of my grandmothers would say, it's just shameful.”
Charles Adams founded the nonprofit Charles Adams Studio Project, or CASP, down the street from LHUCA in 2009, with the help of entrepreneur and philanthropist Margaret Talkington. Adams said the City of Lubbock has historically been highly supportive of the Arts District.
“The city of Lubbock was incredibly generous, incredibly excited about LHUCA and CASP investing money in an area that was polluted and unsellable," Adams said. "And they did everything you could ask to make it possible.”
Adams said many artists exhibiting with his project now are young and trying to express themselves, which he said the city supported in the past.
“I would like for the city to back up a little,” Adams said. “The only people who are going to be hurt by taking away the trolleys are not CASP and LHUCA, we’ll get huge crowds. The people that will be hurt are the smaller venues that are off of campus, and some of those will be put out of business. So if you're trying to punish us, you know, you're not doing a very good job of it.”
One Lubbockite, Andy Seger, told the city council local events he likes to attend regularly are the gun shows at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, where he said he has seen things he felt offended by, like swastikas and Confederate flags.
"My point is that's a city-sponsored venue, and it operates the same way that LHUCA does," Seger said. "In that they merely provide a venue where individual vendors come in.”
Gayle Modrell, a former school librarian, asked the council to “represent all Lubbock residents by funding First Friday, the libraries, and city pools.”
“I am praying the city council is listening to their constituents,” Modrell said. “And may the ghost of Louise Hopkins Underwood haunt you ‘til you make the right decision.”
As the comments from Lubbockites continued, emotions continued to build. Artists and LHUCA members came before the city council with their responses to the decision.
Mary Hogan told the council she’d been an artist since she was 16 years old.
“There's something in the water here that grows great artists, and if they're not nurtured here, they will go somewhere else,” Hogan said.
Hogan now serves as LHUCA's programs manager and the coordinator for the First Friday Art Trail, but the pain in her voice quickly showed that her reasons for speaking out were deeply personal.
“I have shown artwork at multiple galleries in Lubbock. I have given my time and talents to community theater productions and painted beautiful sets for the community actors to enjoy. I created Lubbock’s Hub City Renaissance Fair, which reached over 3,000 people across multiple counties last year. I have booked, directed, and written free programming for families to enjoy,” Hogan said. “I am a queer artist and I am not obscene.”
LHUCA Curator Taylor Ernst expressed the economic and cultural impact that these artistic events have had on promoting the South Plains and tourism for the city of Lubbock. Ernst gave last year’s exhibits from artist Paul Acevedo Gomez as an example of an artist whose exposure in LHUCA and several publications has led to solo exhibitions in galleries across the United States.
Ernst told the city council the funding from Civic Lubbock, Inc., contributes to a stipend that brings artists to Lubbock every year.
“Without these funds, it will be more difficult to bring these artists' works and just so you know, we do 25 exhibitions per year,” Ernst said. “This art and culture is available to Lubbock residents and our out-of-town guests at no admission charge. Not everyone is able to travel to see art, but we're able to bring this art to Lubbock, along with local and regional artists that we feature. That's the vision of our namesake founder, that she had to make this available to as many people as possible.”
Council’s Decision
District 1 representative Christy Martinez-Garcia praised the art trail when she brought a substitute proposal to return the grant money to LHUCA, this time without the stipulations of her and Harris' original resolution.
“It is a beautiful thing,” Martinez-Garcia said. “It is something that I think really demonstrates the possibilities of what Lubbock can be.”
Martinez-Garcia said the council’s decision to cut the funding was based on incorrect information. LHUCA responded to the council’s initial funding cut in a written statement, saying the organization was not consulted by the city council about the grant or LGBTQ+ programming of concern before the July 23 vote. Attendees of the June art trail posted to social media about one performance that many viewers described as intended to bring awareness to discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“While LHUCA disputes if this event was a drag show as stated by Council due to the lack of performers dressed in drag, the performance was held at the Charles Adams Studio Project (CASP) 5&J Gallery which is not property of LHUCA,” the statement read. “CASP is a separate non-profit entity from LHUCA, and they are in control of their own creative programming.”
District 3’s David Glasheen, who brought the initial proposal to pull the art trail’s funding, said he doesn’t think the issue is just about LGBTQ+ art displays. He cited an even bigger issue with the new proposal to return the grant money without oversight.
"It's about a broader question of what are some common sense restrictions on the types of expression that should be supported or promoted by tax dollars, and there are broad categories of sexual, political, violent, other controversial expression that doesn't need to be supported or amplified by tax dollars,” Glasheen said. “Everyone has a Constitutional right, LHUCA, to express themselves; LHUCA has the right to continue this programming without public tax dollars, and it may give them the freedom that they would prefer to have a full range of what they consider to be appropriate expression.”
Glasheen added that without “a comprehensive policy that addresses these concerns,” he suggested the lack of any guidance on the uses of grant funds would be less appropriate.
But Martinez-Garcia responded that LHUCA took the required steps to be eligible for the grant money this year, and taking it away now would be “unfair,” particularly if the performance of concern wasn’t a drag show.
“We based our information off of social media, and that is not fair to this organization that followed the process of applying for a grant that followed everything that was required of them, that submitted everything that was required," Martinez-Garcia said. "It is not fair that we hold them to a different set of standards, and that is the issue for me. So right now, you're right. It is not about LGBTQ or anything else. It is about the fact that we made a mistake, and we need to correct it. And how we're going to correct it is by granting these folks their money, and if we can't do that, then I think it sends a wrong message.”
Glasheen insisted photos and videos online showed a drag performance that “attracted the most media attention,” but he gave a different example of what he sees as individuals taking advantage of tax dollars.
“They promoted a mayoral campaign, ‘Adam Hernandez for Mayor,’ and one of the vendors at the First Friday Art Trail venue also advertised that 40% of the proceeds from their sales would go to support the marijuana legalization movement,” Glasheen said. “That's a significant problem because now you're in a situation where public tax dollars are marketing to an event, the transportation is being used to bring people to the event, and you've got public tax dollars supporting a type of political fundraiser or candidate advocacy. That's why I say it's broader than an LGBT issue. It's about the appropriate role of public tax dollars.”
Mayor Mark McBrayer confirmed the City of Lubbock had not been in contact before the funding cut, but has since made contact with administrators at LHUCA. He maintained his agreement with Glasheen on the subject, saying LHUCA would be “more free” if the organization was not “bound” by tax dollars.
“I honestly think, in my mind, the best situation for LHUCA to be free to do what they want to do and how they want to do it is to be free of the strings that go along with taxpayer-funded money. I think that allows them to pursue what they want to pursue and do their project the way they want to do it, with the total the most amount of freedom that they can do,” McBrayer said. “So I cannot support this at this time, and I'm also going to be in favor of new regulations and new resolutions going forward on these commitments of money, but that's where I am.”
District 6 representative Tim Collins voted in favor of Glasheen’s initial proposal on July 23, but after hearing from constituents through emails and Tuesday’s comments, he proposed a compromise deal that reduced the grant money for LHUCA’s marketing of the art trail, while trying to include around $20,000 in grant funds to provide the event with trolley services and security.
Glasheen and McBrayer rejected these compromise efforts on the grounds that they do not address primary concerns with the use of public funds.
As city council members reached their eighth hour in discussion on Tuesday, McBrayer proposed $5,000 in grant funds be provided for the art trail’s security, a measure that was approved by the council with a vote of 4-3, as McBrayer, Martinez-Garcia, Harris and Collins voted in favor of the limited funds.
“I realize, you know, the problem Mr. Glasheen has raised, it doesn't solve some of the underlying issues, but I believe a separate issue has been created by this whole process,” McBrayer said. “So that's, that's why I think it is now, stand alone, as something different that does concern me.”
The day after the meeting, LHUCA released a statement responding to the council's decision to uphold funding cuts.
