Portland representative John Eder, the lone Green in Augusta, wishes he had more friends in the capitol these days. Since supposedly securing funds last March for an unprecedented “arts incubator” to support the creative economy in Portland, Eder says the state has given him the run-around. Now, the $500,000 he was promised has disappeared.
“My beef is whether the [Democratic] leadership and the governor are going to keep their commitment to get the money to Portland,” says Eder.
Opportunity shone on Eder during the dark days of budget negotiations last spring. As Dems scrambled to scrape together enough votes to pass the governor’s controversial state budget, Eder proposed a swap. For his yes vote on the House floor, party leadership would hand Eder $200,000 for a program to teach English to newly-immigrated students in Portland’s public schools, and $500,000 for an arts incubator (see “Let’s Get Growing,” by Sara Donnelly, May 20, 2005). Brainstorming for the arts incubator soon took off — plans now include two full-time support staff, professional-development workshops, and a creative resource library — but Eder says the money trail disintegrated.
Last month, with the winter holidays over, Eder decided to alert Democratic party leadership about the missing incubator money. According to the original plan, funding was to be funneled through the University of Maine System’s budget. But it looks like UMaine spent the money on other things.
Ironically, it was at a meeting of the governor’s Creative Economy Council that Baldacci’s senior policy advisor, Alan Stearns, told council co-chairman Eder the arts-support money had dried up, proving there’s no better place to blow someone off about a creative-economy plan than at a meeting about the creative economy. Stearns said it was because the higher-education bond failed in November’s referendum. But Eder says he is “positive” the incubator money was not contingent on a successful bond.
“I asked [Stearns] what was going on and he said the university didn’t get its bond package blah, blah, blah,” says Eder. “I was like, whatever Alan. It’s not up to me where the money’s coming from.”
According to Stearns, the university’s responsibility to fund the incubator was a “good faith commitment” which did rely on the bond and its overall budget. John Diamond, a spokesman for the university, was unable to find a UMaine System representative familiar with the incubator before the Phoenix's deadline.
Stearns and Eder plan to meet later this month to find other sources of funding for the incubator, including grants from state agencies like the Maine State Housing Authority. Eder, in the meantime, has incorporated the incubator as a nonprofit, and has launched a Web site to share ideas on the concept, at www.portlandartsincubator.com.
On top of Eder’s money woes, he’s also catching a vibe that the state wants to channel the money through city government rather than the city’s artists. Stearns hopes to involve Portland’s new “arts mayor” Jim Cohen in the planning and execution of the arts incubator. Eder says he “was pissed” when he heard about this development.
"I wouldn’t want to see it turn into a whole government or city thing," he says. "I really do believe that the artists want to make it theirs.”
Eder has asked House Majority Leader Glenn Cummings (D-Portland) and House Speaker John Richardson (D-Brunswick) to help him work with Governor Baldacci to track down the missing incubator funds. Both Cummings and Richardson say they expect to meet with Eder within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, Eder, with no fellow Green reps or a staff to give him bargaining leverage in Augusta, has little more than “good faith” itself to rely on.
