Arts get boost from OC Council
By JUDITH O. ETZEL

Photo by Jerry Sowden - Lee Mehlburger asked Oil City Council for a resolution in support of the arts revitalization movement and the Arts Council.

An Oil City Council member laid out a challenge at Monday's council workshop that aims to offer more than lip service to the growing downtown arts revitalization efforts.

"I am asking council for a resolution in support of the arts revitalization movement and the Arts Council," said Lee Mehlburger, a council member and champion for the city's rapidly expanding artists' project. "...It is part of the economic revitalization of Oil City."

A large contingent of Arts Council members plus local artists attended the meeting in support of Mehlburger's plea for council to issue a direct endorsement. None made comments in light of council's unanimous approval of a resolution.

Mehlburger prefaced his request with a brief history of the Arts Council and the emerging artists' studio and relocation programs. Oil City Council sponsored the creation of the all-volunteer Arts Council in 1993 and the group functions under the auspices of council.

"Over the years, it has grown to be an umbrella agency," said Mehlburger, ticking off the First Night promotion, Center for the Arts in the Transit Annex Building, Transit Fine Arts Gallery, downtown revitalization through the arts and more.

In reminding council members that "council chose the arts to revitalize the downtown," Mehlburger said the Arts Council has acquired the Transit Annex, filled it with artists' studios, enticed artists to relocate to the city, set up art classes, established film and music festivals, hired a marketing director in Joan Wheeler and more, all on "a shoestring budget" funded in a piecemeal fashion by grants, donations, gallery sales, class income and other sources.

"In the past several years, the Oil City Arts Council has existed because of volunteers who have given thousands and thousands of hours for love of Oil City....We're moving faster than anyone thought we would," Mehlburger said.

He asked council to formally recognize the "tremendous job" done by volunteers and artists, single out the Arts Council as a "vital part of the economic revitalization" of the city, and pledge that Oil City government would "continue to support the Arts Council in its economic and cultural enhancement."

Further, said Mehlburger, council should express those sentiments in a formal resolution.

That met with unanimous acceptance from council members Chad Rosen and John Bartlett and Mayor Sonja Hawkins. Neil McElwee, a council member, did not attend the meeting.

Bartlett went a step further than an endorsement, noting, "Council needs to consider a modest tax increase to set aside (money) for opportunities like the Arts Council...(because) the city is not in a position to take it from operations (account)."

The councilman cautioned, however, that while "to build a future, you have to be prepared to spend a little," any recipient cannot "look at that money as a lock" in the future.

The Arts Council and its projects, said Rosen, are making Oil City "a melting pot of different people, not just people from the same valley...(and) reminding people we are still here."

"People who left looking for culture can move back to town and find culture," said Rosen, a newly appointed council member.

Noting the downtown arts movement is having an effect, Rosen said he compares the business district from when he was living elsewhere to now and sees "so few empty storefronts now - and I'm sure they will soon be filled."

In asking Mehlburger to work with city manager Tom Rockovich and draw up a pro-Arts Council resolution, Hawkins said, "The arts movement in Oil City is way ahead of where we thought it would be. It has a life of its own."