Re: June 7 guest commentary.
Virtually all metro areas tout regional cooperation, and for good reason. When diverse communities set aside parochial interests and work together, positive things happen.
Economic growth and job creation are strengthened, and quality of life improves. Few regions accomplish this goal as well as metro Denver. One reflection of this is the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), recognized as a national model for how residents of a multi-county region can expand access to arts, culture and science.
Created in 1988 by voters with a one-tenth of 1 percent retail sales and use tax, the SCFD supports more than 270 scientific and cultural organizations in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties.
The SCFD board is committed to honoring and sustaining this extraordinary legacy, which again will be before voters in 2016.
That’s why the SCFD board implemented an extensive and inclusive stakeholder involvement process, beginning in 2012, engaging hundreds of individuals from organizations small, medium and large and from all cultural disciplines in all seven counties.
It’s important to note that the recommendations adopted by the SCFD board at its meeting last month came from this stakeholder process, all designed to support a nimble and sustainable SCFD.
In embarking on this process, the SCFD board members knew that we weren’t going to please everybody. For some, it was too much of a shift of resources away from the largest organizations; for others, it wasn’t enough of a shift.
Two board members of one organization, the Colorado Symphony, voiced their concerns in last Sunday’s Denver Post and argued for a greater increase in share of these taxpayer-supported revenues. But the overwhelming majority of organizations that receive SCFD funding and participated in the reauthorization task force supported the final recommendations, recognizing that the best plans are informed by multiple perspectives and forged by compromise.
It’s the way we do business in Colorado, collaboratively.
The highest priority now is to join together in support of reauthorization and the economic, educational and cultural benefits that the SCFD and our arts, science and cultural organizations bring to all the residents of our region.
Shepard Nevel and Elaine Torres are board members of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.
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