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The most meaning arts and cultural experience I had growing up had to do with the easy access I had to art, theater, music and film. Growing up in New York City was magical because art is everywhere. As a young girl, my parents took me to Radio City Music Hall regularly to see featured films. When I reached my 20s, Friday nights revolved around dinner and a Broadway, or off Broadway show. I then began attending art openings and collecting pieces. These early years shaped my appreciation for the total art experience.

As a daughter of a career military officer, I lived in many different places throughout the U.S. and overseas. I grew up experiencing and learning to appreciate many different cultures- their arts, traditions, history, and language. That appreciation for the arts and cultural diversity has been an important part of my personal and professional development.

Attending the enormous free concerts and theatre performances in public amphitheaters as a child in India. Only when I came to United States did I realize the significant impact those free public performances had on culture, civics and society in general. It is one of the elements I cherish most from my childhood and appreciate in Long Beach.

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I attended South Shores Magnet school as a child, and every year as part of my video production class, we would take field trips to California State University Dominguez Hills to film on stage productions such as the "King and I". It was a beautiful experience that I will never forgot today.

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My first cultural experience has got to be our 4th grade field trip to the Hollywood Bowl. To this day, I still remember that experience and presentation of all the instruments. Over the last 20 years, our children have had the same opportunity, by visiting programs such as the Long Beach Symphony, and the Orange County performing arts. These early introductions to the Art are essential for development and appreciation and must be continued.

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While direct support of the arts is ideal, at the very least the City should adopt a 'do no harm' policy that removes impediments to activation of retail and other non-traditional arts spaces. This includes a revision of existing zoning regulations that currently prohibit live music and other cultural activities from most businesses, and an elimination of the occasional use permits that, more often than not, create more problems than they solve.

I firmly believe that elected officials should be enthusiastic and participatory advocates of the public, private, and non-profit partnerships that improve our cultural infrastructure. Arts and culture stimulate the creative and build a more holistic City. I will work diligently as an elected official to promote arts and cultural projects including facilitating projects and programs that get bogged down in bureaucracy. I will champion the efforts of entities that find innovative and cultural uplifting projects that benefit our residents and visitors.

I believe cities are where the rubber hits the road in terms of services, quality of life and culture. Therefore, City Councils have tremendous opportunities to support arts and culture on micro and macro levels, encouraging and supporting local artists and arts organizations while contributing to the overall framework of cultural resources offered regionwide. As an example, I authored legislation to include the most recent update to our Cultural Master Plan, Create Long Beach into our City General Plan 2030. Create Long Beach is a ten-year plan that includes an economic analysis of the arts in Long Beach and an assessment of the recommendations from the 1996 Community Cultural Plan. Integrating the Cultural Master Plan and Create Long Beach into our city planning is a symbolic and practical gesture, acknowledging the importance of arts and culture in all those elements of city making that ultimately contribute to quality of life and economic development. I have also championed a project called the Art Exchange in a historic building downtown, which when completed will provide space for artists to work and thrive in many art forms through exhibits areas, studios and an industrial hot shop for onlookers to witness how art is created. It will also enable our CSULB and community college art students to interact with working artists.

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City Council should promote art and cultural festivals at local parks and schools, and encourage the community to support local art museums.

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The City Council needs to be more proactive in it's fund raising endeavors to support our local programs. It's unfortunate that in financial times like today, the Arts programs are some of the first to go. Some areas of financial support could come in the elimination of certain fees. Promotional shows and exhibits could be done with more volunteers and less staff members, saving costs and promoting volunteerism.

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During her tenure, Mayor Beverly O'Neill convened an Arts Funding Task Force that produced a set of recommendations for Council. More recently, our current Mayor, Bob Foster, convened a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Arts Funding, who also produced a list of recommendations for Council. I would start by trying to implement those recommendations.

I'd actually like to see city council members apply for more privately funded grants for local art projects,. I'm not grant writer, but as a council member I would lend my position's title and weight to any grant, and even attempt to write a few for my district personally. Additionally, I'd look to private funds through crowd sourcing. One of my favorite project proposals I have for the city (if the residents of the district embrace it), is an Art-Wall on Alamitos Beach, similar to the one they have in Venice Beach. It's essentially a long stretch of 5 foot high concrete divided into a few section that artists pay to use for the day. You charge $25-$50 per artist and they get to use a designated section of the wall for anything they want. People caught using the wall without day-use permits are fined. It's a great way to encourage public art while raising some small but useful funds for the city. I believe we could pay for the design and construction through a publicly managed KICKSTARTER campaign. These are some new styles of arts patronage I would bring to the Long Beach City Council. We are constantly on the precipice of a budgetary crisis, and may not always have city funds to do the projects we'd like. That doesn't mean a city council person cannot spend their time successfully locating and obtaining resources to support more arts culture in their districts.

Around the globe there are nations that dwarf the United States in their per capita spending on the arts. Locally, when municipalities wrestle with their budgets, often times arts and culture funds are among the first to be cut. It is my belief that Long Beach’s s’ rich culture must be preserved, its funding of the arts be maintained through creative public, private, and non-profit partnerships, and the region be promoted for its cultural value. It will be important to look at the budget from a multi- year perspective to ensure that arts programs are included in budget allocation decisions.

During my first term in Council, I co-authored legislation creating a Blue Ribbon Committee on Arts Funding to advise the Council on the best ways to maintain or increase funding for arts and culture and at the same time review the current mechanisms for distribution of funding. The Committee was made up of community members with proven expertise in the arts, business, finance, and not-for-profit management. Their report is expected to come back to City Council in the next two months. During this historic downturn in the economy, our Mayor, Council and City Manager have had to cut closer to the bone every year, reducing the budget for all services including public safety. However, I believe Long Beach is defined by its arts and culture, so I am committed to finding a source of funding.

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I would not allow a decrease in the current funding of local arts and culture, and would ask the community and local business to support and sponsor local culture and art festivals.

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1) Examine the compelling research done by Americans for the Arts that shows, without a doubt, that investment in creative and cultural infrastructure produces a huge return in real dollars. 2) Explore how other Cities have produced sustained success from the arts. Cities like Austin, San Diego, and Seattle, for example, have taken great care to preserve the dynamic cultural landscapes that flourish there. Also, create “Arts and Culture” Bureau. 3) Work with County, State, and National arts organizations to create mutually beneficial collaborations that simultaneously showcases the great art and artists of Long Beach, and brings great art to our City.

1) Somewhat controversially, I'm extremely frustrated that musically this city has not had any of the 'Top 50 EDM DJ's' play here (excluding a somewhat annual performance by Paul Oakenfold at Shore) in the entire time I've lived here. Its an atrocity that we call our selves a city with wonderful nightlife and entertainment districts yet we don't have the facilities nor business friendly attitude to foster these events. I would work with local business owners to bring these types of affordable yet highly profitable entertainers to the city, and work with the City Manager and Special Events office to make the process of having these events much easier to navigate, and much more affordable for the businesses that would host them. In fact, I'll go so far as to state that if elected I will do my best to convince Pasquale Rotella to bring the highly profitable Electric Daisy Carnival back to Long Beach. It will be a fantastic financial boon to this city while fostering what has been a neglected musical culture in Long Beach. I also believe it will bring additional tourism in the long run, showing our city welcomes youth-culture and all forms of creative entertainment.

2) I would, as stated above, use the city council's seat and prestige to help develop privately funded art projects and events on city property. I mentioned my Alamitos Beach Art Wall, but another project I'd like to see is a bi-monthly mural on each side of Acres of Books, until the Art Exchange development or some other project at that site comes to fruition.

3) .I would work to host more city-backed celebrations that could be profitable both to our city and the businesses that would benefit from increased traffic. I'd like to work with the special events office and the city manager's office to lower the costs for events like Zombie Walk, Funkfest, Mardi Gras, and more. If these events have more money to spend thanks to lower city costs, they'll have more to offer their attendees which in turn should help make the events successful. This in turn helps the businesses around the events as they receive customers from the cross traffic.

Investment in the arts and cultural is a critical component that would benefit many of our region’s needs including our economic infrastructure. Bringing the vast culture of our City into the homes and hands of constituents and tourists through technology would allow people to experience and drive people’s desire to actually participate in what our City has to offer.

I have already mentioned a couple wonderful examples such as including our cultural master plan in the City General Plan and championing a project that has been 10 years in the making for working artist to flourish, students to learn, residents to appreciate and a creative class to be attracted. In addition, I have encouraged special events such as Summer and Music (SAM), Rose Park Bluegrass Festival, Latin American Festival, Shakespeare/movies in the park and beaches, and many other events to make Long Beach their home. I also hope to explore an opportunity with the Arts Council for Long Beach and other arts organizations to renovate and operate an historic arts building downtown along what I believe will someday be considered our Cultural Corridor. Finally, I have provided the political will for Long Beach to return to its roots by embracing historic ties to active lifestyles, alternative sports and healthy living through grant-funded bicycle infrastructure and programs, skate parks, and our marine-based activities. These are just a few ways Long Beach hopes to foster an environment for the creative economy to flourish through the integration of arts, culture and sports.

I would begin by introducing the idea of creating local cultural towns such as little Mexico, little Cambodia, or a little Vietnam. It would create a great opportunity for cultural tourism. Secondly, I would provide incentives to local businesses who only hire local residents as employees. Finally, I would beautify the entire city to encourage businesses and citizens to participate and contribute in making Long Beach the best city it can be.

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As I stated above. The best practice at this time will be for the city to lower it's costs and permits fees for cultural events. On the same note, promotors should be brought in to help market some of our events that are not related to just downtown, and focus on the communities in which they stem from. Long Beach must also look at some of the business license fees they are charging local artist within the community. We are one of the highest in LA County.