Read the candidates' responses here
Your Personal Connection
1. We've all had defining moments in our lives. What personal experience with arts, culture, or creativity has affected your life and your view of the Lynn community?
Arts and Culture in the City
2. Lynn is blessed with a rich mix of arts and cultural organizations. What are two places where you have had personally significant arts and/or cultural experiences in our city?
Addressing Citywide Issues
3. Lynn’s current challenges include a recent increase in violence, the opioid epidemic, and city finances. How would you integrate the arts, culture, and creative community in solving these challenges? Please give one or two specific examples.
4. How would you use Lynn’s arts and culture community to revitalize the city so that businesses and customers flock to it? Please give one or two specific examples.
The City Council’s Role in the Creative Community
At a time when the Trump administration proposed dismantling the National Endowment for the Arts and the State Legislature chose not to increase investment in the Mass Cultural Council, we need local leadership and support for arts and culture here in the city—now more than ever. Describe how you will address these funding concerns in the following areas:
5. What three revenue sources will you consider creating or using to increase the city’s financial investment in the creative community?
6. What are your program priorities and where will the funds be allocated?
An Arts Destination
7. While Lynn is growing as a community, the city has yet to fully leverage the strength of our arts, culture, and creative community as a means for branding and attracting residents, employees, and visitors. How would you integrate the arts into your plan to make Lynn a place where people want to live, work, play, and visit?
8. The Downtown Lynn Cultural District is a core driver of DTL’s revitalization—yet it currently lacks the infrastructure, budget, or city leadership advocacy it needs to thrive. What would you do to significantly support the District?
Arts Education and Programs for our Youth
9. Studies indicate that art instruction should be a critical part of education across all academic disciplines, as it develops the whole child. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has pledged to update the Commonwealth’s arts education curriculum and report on arts education in schools and districts. What will you do as Councilor-At-Large to support arts education in the city’s schools and our community?
