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The Arts Council offered candidates an opportunity to respond to a set of questions about the issues important to the arts community and how the candidates would address these issues if elected. These questions and the candidates' answers will allow you compare candidates in the Fort Worth City Council Elections and help us continue to advocate for the arts with our City leaders. These answers are unedited, save for formatting issues.
List of Candidates
Ricardo Avitia
Awaiting a reply from the candidate. It will be uploaded as soon as we receive it.
Elizabeth Beck
Awaiting a reply from the candidate. It will be uploaded as soon as we receive it.
Doyle Fine
Awaiting a reply from the candidate. It will be uploaded as soon as we receive it.
Jordan Mims
Awaiting a reply from the candidate. It will be uploaded as soon as we receive it.
Fernando Peralta
Awaiting a reply from the candidate. It will be uploaded as soon as we receive it.
Sabrina Renteria
Awaiting a reply from the candidate. It will be uploaded as soon as we receive it.
Erik Richerson
Awaiting a reply from the candidate. It will be uploaded as soon as we receive it.
Jared Sloane*
Full Disclosure: Jared Sloane currently serves as Chair of the Arts Council of Fort Worth Board of Directors.
In a few short sentences, tell us about yourself and your relationship to the visual and/or performing arts.
I'm a business owner, volunteer, former firefighter, husband, and dad who sets goals and seeks solutions. I’m also proudly serving my second term as chairman of the Arts Council of Fort Worth and Tarrant County board of directors. My wife, Amethyst, and I have been patrons of the Texas Ballet Theater and Circle Theatre for many years, and we regularly visit our city’s beautiful art galleries. I’m a former trumpet player, and my resolution for 2021 is to learn to paint! That’s admittedly a work in progress!
How would you work to increase the City’s investment in the arts industry to meet growing needs and bring our funding in line with other major cities in Texas?
The arts community in Fort Worth is world class, providing our city with a subtle sophistication that makes Fort Worth livable. But it’s also drastically undervalued, and compared to peer cities, we’re far behind in financial support for the arts. We need to call to more attention to our public art installations around the city to ensure pieces are properly maintained. We also need advocacy for funding through hotel occupancy tax revenues. As the city councilman for district 9, I’ll continue to work to bring attention to the economic importance of our artists, advocate for HOT funding, and expand public arts funding within my top priorities.
Please share your thoughts on how the arts can help our City lift up diverse voices, close opportunity gaps, and how can Fort Worth’s mayor help this grow?
Art is one of our most unifying tools to address diversity and inequality in Fort Worth because the arts transcend politics and connect people at a deeper, thoughtful, emotional level. The arts provide all of us with outlets to express ourselves, from painting, to sculpture, to photography, to music, to dance, and more. We need more engagement from the city to elevate our arts community as key players in our economic vitality and social strength. The mayor and city council members can highlight the importance of artists in Fort Worth by attending performances, publicly recognizing the economic impact of the arts in our region and seeking new funding for the arts in our region.
As our City recovers from the pandemic, how will you ensure that the arts are part of the conversation regarding City planning, economic development, affordable housing, and neighborhood revitalization initiatives?
Fort Worth is far behind our peer cities in funding for the arts. That means we’re also far behind in providing the amenities and services that are essential to a contemporary quality of life for our residents. Our funding is nearly dependent on city allocations from the general fund and waning contributions from an overburdened community of long-time benefactors. We need a new plan for funding a vibrant arts community in Fort Worth so that we’re building the quality of life we want for our future. We can do that by engaging with the city to plan for future funding from hotel occupancy tax revenues, and by advocating for public art investments in the revitalization of our urban core. These plans take time to build support for the votes we need, and that’s why I’ll start promoting funding for the arts on day one.
Tell us about the visual and/or performing arts in your Council District. What are you most proud of? What needs help to grow?
I’m proud of public art in our city, from the convention center’s Apparel and Earrings, through the Avenue of Light, down South Main, to the firefighter boots at Station 8, to Memory at Fairmount park, and all the special pieces that adorn our district’s public spaces. And we’re also home to our incredible performing artists and venues, like Circle Theatre, Jubilee Theatre, Amphibian Theater, and Stage West. Did I mention SiNaCa? Plus, our foundational legacy partners, like the Cliburn, Bass Performance Hall, the Fort Worth Opera, and the symphony. There are really too many to mention here in this small space.
What we need to grow is the consumer market for art in Fort Worth to foster economic sustainability for artists and political will for our elected officials. Fort Worth is an arts city, and we should be focused on building a vibrant, economically sustainable arts community that promotes tourism, that enhances the quality of life for new, creative residents, and that reinforces Fort Worth as an ideal location for business relocation.
Phone
Fax
817-392-6187
Location
District 9 Office
200 Texas St., Fort Worth, 76102
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