Arts & Culture

Cuyahoga County Executive Race: Ronanye and Weingart talk arts funding

By Kabir Bhatia

Published November 1, 2022 at 3:32 AM EDT

Both candidates for Cuyahoga County executive — Democrat Chris Ronayne and Republican Lee Weingart — want to see more public funding distributed to smaller arts groups and individual artists. Ronayne was formerly the president of University Circle Inc., home to many of the county's major cultural institutions, including the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Annie Wu / Ideastream Public Media] — University Circle spelled out in red metal across the street from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The race to succeed Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish has been a contentious one – but Republican Lee Weingart and Democrat Chris Ronayne have very similar views when it comes to arts and culture funding.

Both have a great deal of public service and political lobbying on their resumes. But Ronayne was also president of the nonprofit which advocates for Cleveland’s University Circle, one of the region’s artistic hubs. His views on how arts and culture funds should be distributed are very similar to his opponent’s.

“A lot of the money that the county allocates goes to larger arts organizations,” said Weingart. “Many of [them] have large endowments and have the ability to fund their operations. Less of the money goes to small arts organizations or individual artists, and so I'd like to see some shift of priorities.”

Weingart said shifting funds would not impact tourism that might be tied to the larger organizations, given how much state and federal money they receive. But he wants to see smaller groups get an increase.

"There's just a lot of groups that you see around Detroit Shoreway or on the East Side of Cleveland," he said. "Particularly places like Glenville, Mount Pleasant and Hough. So, I'd like to see more investment, particularly in urban-based small arts organizations as well as individual artists throughout the county.”

Ronayne has heard a similar message.

"The other day I was out on the campaign trail with a group called Kings and Queens of Art," he said. "It's mostly African American artists who are mostly in the visual arts. And the work from the artists that I saw displayed on E. 34th St. off of St. Clair was just phenomenal. But there was a refrain from the artists that not enough of arts and cultural dollars are reaching our artists from our communities of color. And I think that that's something that we ought to be mindful of."

Cigarette, or tobacco, tax?

Weingart is also in favor of expanding the county’s cigarette tax – which provides about $11 million in arts funding annually – to include other forms of tobacco as smoking declines. It’s an idea pitched to state lawmakers in March 2021, by a coalition of 80 arts groups throughout the state.

Ronayne said it’s one possibility, but he wants to look broader at “a myriad of sources.”

“We just need to think of tobacco sources as probably fleeting sources – as has already proven in the initial tobacco tax – it wasn't particularly sustainable,” he said.

Ideastream Public Media is one of the organizations that receives arts and culture funding from the county’s cigarette tax.

Ronayne added that public funding for the arts should be seen as economic development.

"As the state of Ohio thinks about its economic development initiatives... over the decades of investing in manufacturing, investing in healthcare and IT, investing in energy... [they] need to think about arts as economic development,” he said. “And I believe that we should be having that conversation in Columbus."