BY AUGUSTA STATZ
A community meeting was held Feb. 25 at the Muse Arts Warehouse to discuss House Bill 73, The Local Growth Bill.
Flora Maria Garcia, the CEO of Metro Atlanta Arts Council (MAAC), led the meeting along with DaVena Jordan, the executive director of AWOL, an after school student art involvement program. Garcia explained that The Local Growth Bill is a piece of legislation that will benefit both the arts and the economy.
Garcia said that MAAC wanted to create a bill that would benefit the art communities in Georgia. However, Garcia explained that a bill designed specifically to benefit the arts alone would never be passed. So the group paired the arts with economy. The driving force of the bill is the fact that it will benefit the economy, which will help the bill get passed not only by the House and Senate, but by the voters as well.
The bill would allow for each county in Georgia to decide which economic entities they wish to allot money for. The bill calls for a one-cent sales tax to be divided into fractions. Each county could determine how much of the cent would be divided and pick which economic entity the money would go toward.
Under this umbrella of economic development is creation and operation of sports or recreational facilities and activities, after school programs, improvements in public safety and crime prevention, the acquisition, development and maintenance of public parks trails and bikeways, the maintenance and improvement of public roads or transportation and job creation.
It would be up to each individual county to choose which one of these categories the bill funded.
The legislation states that a minimum of 50 percent of 1/10 of one cent will go towards arts and culture initiatives. With that small percentage of a penny going towards the arts, Chatham County would be able to raise $2.8 million.
This bill has not yet been passed, but is in the beginning stages of being passed. If the bill is passed, counties would be able to immediately decide how to spend their penny tax by polling citizens. The legislation would last for up to 15 years, raising a lot of money for the arts. “[MAAC] wanted something that was sustainable, stable and long-term,” explained Garcia.
“Basically, the legislation is the paint, and it is up to the community to start painting,” said Jordan.
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