A new era for Santa Ana's arts community has begun with yesterday's decision by the Santa Ana City Council to establish an Arts Commission.  The Commission will be comprised of seven Santa Ana residents to be appointed by the Council in the coming weeks and will meet monthly.  The City Manager also announced that he would seek to fill one of two existing Senior Management Assistant vacancies with a specialist in arts and culture to provide staff assistance to the new Commission.  This will be the first time that Santa Ana has had an arts manager on its staff since 2004, when the position (then held by Jim Gilliam, who is now shepherding arts programs for the City of Encinitas) was eliminated after 6 years during major budget cutbacks. 

During the 1990s, Santa Ana made investing in the arts a priority, painted "City of the Arts" on its iconic water tower, and partnered with Cal State Fullerton to create Grand Central Art Center in what became known as the Artists Village which now hosts a popular monthly art walk.  During this period, the City's largest arts institution, the Bowers Museum, underwent a transformation and expanded its facilities, and Saint Joseph Ballet opened a new facility and re-branded as The Wooden Floor. 

Like most cities with redevelopment agencies, the state's elimination of that funding mechanism put a damper on continued arts development in Santa Ana, the Great Recession took its toll economically, and other community issues dominated the focus of the City Council.

Then, two years ago, downtown Santa Ana property owner Mike Harrah put his historic Santora Arts Building on the market.  When it became known that a prospective buyer planned to turn it into a church, Santa Ana's arts community mobilized and formed United Artists of Santa Ana (UASA).  The artists discovered, to their alarm, that the City's permit agreement requiring that the Santora must maintain a majority arts tenant base had expired.  But they also learned that the site was not zoned to permit a church, and they conducted an active campaign to restore the artistic focus of the property.  After that buyer withdrew, a new buyer, Jack Jakosky, emerged and pledged to honor the artistic nature of the building. 

UASA then re-grouped around the goal to persuade the City to establish an Arts Commission, which Santa Ana has never had.  In addition to UASA, a major catalyst in the City's decision to create an Arts Commission was its new City Manager David Cavazos, who had come from Phoenix, Arizona, where he experienced firsthand the benefits of a city government engaged with the arts community and the resulting impact upon that city's economic development and quality of life.  Leading to the Council's decision was a staff report prepared by Gerardo Mouet, the City's Executive Director of Parks, Recreation and Community Services.