2025 Somerville mayoral candidates participate in a forum on arts & culture
2025 Somerville Mayoral Forum on Arts & Culture Host Committee members at Warehouse XI.
On Monday, August 25, 2025, 130 artists, creatives, cultural organization leaders, and members of the arts community in Somerville attended a mayoral forum on arts and culture at Warehouse XI. Organized by the 2025 Create the Vote Somerville Coalition, this forum allowed members of the creative community to hear directly from Somerville mayoral candidates Katjana Ballantyne, Willie Burnley Jr, and Jake Wilson about their policy positions and proposals to support the City’s creative workforce over the next four years. The candidates were asked questions that were submitted in advance by members of the audience. The forum was moderated by Amelia Mason, Senior Arts & Culture Reporter at WBUR.
Organized through MASSCreative since 2013, Create the Vote is a nonpartisan, statewide program promoting increased civic education and engagement through the creative community in Massachusetts. Through the support of the Barr Foundation, Create the Vote organizers have partnered with advocates throughout the Commonwealth to hold candidate forums around Massachusetts House and Senate races, and statewide races including the Lieutenant Governor’s race in 2022. Create the Vote is a tool for the creative community in Massachusetts to increase voter education, promote voter turnout, and to elevate the profile of creative workers as civic leaders during election cycles.
“We know that the creative sector has always been a powerful vehicle for driving voter engagement and turnout and this is a moment where we need everyone off the bench doing that work. Voters have a real opportunity to get the attention of candidates and influence cultural policies before elections. We’re seeing the residents of Somerville do that right now.”
The Somerville forum was scheduled one month after Create the Vote organizers also held a Boston Mayoral Forum on Arts & Culture at the Strand Theatre. More than 750 people registered for the Boston forum, where attendees communicated concerns to mayoral candidates about funding and resource allocation, artist displacement and creative space loss, housing and affordability, arts workers and labor, arts education and youth engagement, and how each of their administrations would prioritize and preserve diversity, equity, and inclusion in their policies and programs.
“In the last month we’ve seen an amazing response from creatives in Boston and Somerville who are showing up and making sure that candidates know they need to invest time and energy in the creative sector. It really matters that creatives are driving these conversations and challenging the people who represent them to do better by the sector.”
Somerville residents communicated similar questions and concerns to their mayoral candidates. Attendees had the opportunity to submit their questions for Ballantyne, Burnley Jr., and Wilson using the online event registration form hosted by MASSCreative. Live questions were not accepted from the audience during the forum. Submitted questions followed larger themes of how candidates would define a thriving arts and culture sector, and how they would maintain transparency and accountability. Participants requested to understand the candidates’ plans for implementing recommendations released by the Anti-Displacement Task Force (ADTF) Creative Displacement Committee and the Somerville Cultural Capacity Plan (SCCP).
In January 2025, Somerville’s Anti-Displacement Task Force (ADTF) Creative Displacement Committee outlined six policy initiatives to safeguard the creative ecosystem amid ongoing creative space loss and economic pressures. The plans call on the City to formally integrate arts into planning and decision-making through statements of values, standing committees, and enhanced visibility. It calls for robust monitoring of the arts ecosystem via space inventories and artist censuses to inform responsive policy. The report proposes safeguarding creative space through models like cultural trusts, right-of-refusal agreements, and support for community ownership, alongside cataloging available venues and incentivizing affordable artist housing and property tax reductions. It also recommends strengthening arts business development through expanded grant programs and entrepreneurship support, and securing diverse funding sources including taxes, levies, and public-private partnerships.
Released in February 2025, the SCCP is the city’s first cultural roadmap, aiming to integrate arts and culture into municipal policies to support a vibrant, equitable, and resilient creative ecosystem. The plan identifies key challenges faced by the sector and outlines five strategic objectives: preserving cultural spaces, increasing funding, amplifying diverse community voices, supporting new initiatives, and embedding culture in city planning. The plan also proposes investments in both “hard” (infrastructure, zoning, funding) and “soft” (mentorship, networks) support, with near-term actions like reviving the Cultural Ambassador program, creating standing committees, and exploring a cultural trust to protect and manage space.
“We all know how important the arts are for everyone’s health and well-being. As the leader of a 54-year-old non-profit arts organization in Somerville, I want to be sure that our mayor and city council understand the many ways that Somerville artists and arts organizations offer spaces for learning and creativity. Our contributions as economic drivers and community builders underscores the importance of arts and culture, and I am looking to our elected officials to support and promote art in our community.”
Forum attendees wanted to know the candidates’ plans for implementing the recommendations from the Anti-Displacement Task Force’s Creative Displacement Committee and the SCCP, as well as their visions for the sector’s long-term growth, how they would reignite nightlife after the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they will advocate for increased state and local funding to make up for recent federal funding cuts.
“As a volunteer arts nonprofit which has organized in Somerville for the last few years. It’s crucial for all creatives who live and work in Somerville, to know the candidates’ positions on supporting the sector. We encourage everyone to engage in the process, and for our sector to be heard. Our votes are our voices, in action.”
The Somerville Mayoral Forum was organized by host committee members from the #ARTSTAYSHERE Coalition, Central Street Studios, CultureHouse, Dara Capley, David Jubinsky, Esh Circus Arts, Joy Street Artist, MASSCreative, Metropolitan Area Planning Council, Milk Row Studios Tenants Association, Mudflat Studio, Restoring the Feeling, The Nave Gallery, Union Square Neighborhood Council, and Vernon Street Studios.
The 2025 Create the Vote Somerville Coalition will continue its work through this election cycle by promoting voter education and turnout for the preliminary and general elections.
