Norma Munn, chair of the New York City Arts Coalition, was fuming. As an organizer of the Coalition's June 23 "Forum for the Arts I," she'd tried to gather all six mayoral candidates on the stage of the Joyce Theatre to at least ponder the needs of the arts industry. (Forget the term community, we're talking about a $6 billion a year enterprise that's larger than either the advertising or hotel industries.)

Koch declined and Giuliani and Lauder could not attend. David Dinkins recited his standard (intelligent) three-year-old line and a Jay Goldin surrogate made eyes roll by noting that "when things are rough, we need more entertainment, more recreation, and more art."

The final speaker of the evening, Richard Ravitch, was late and the crowd was restless. Munn paced the stage and could contain herself no longer. "They really don't care about us, they don't give a damn. We [at the coalition] asked the Charter Revision Commission to include arts and culture in their discussions and they haven't even replied to us. This," she said, stopping to catch her breath, "is a city with no cultural policy." Some of us would have cheered her, but we felt too depressed.

A few weeks later I visited San Francisco, where the problem of the arts' lack of clout at City Hall is well on its way to being solved. I am not exaggerating. Local art politicos have run with an idea so breathtakingly simple, it's hard to believe that nobody has thought of it before. They've formed the San Francisco Arts Democratic Club, a recognized auxiliary of the local Democratic Party that is already one of the three largest Democratic clubs in the city, with nearly 500 dues-paying members.

What has the S.F. Arts Democratic Club accomplished in its short, eight-month life? It effectively pressured Mayor Art Agnos to appoint a liaison for the arts, an unfulfilled campaign promise. (Club founder Margie O'Driscoll was given the nod.) It has summoned many of the city's heaviest political hitters and key arts administrators to publicly discuss arts policy. It helped persuade state legislators to restore proposed cuts in the California Arts Council's budget. It asked for--and was immediately granted--a meeting with the San Fransisco Examiner's editorial board after the appearance of an unflattering editorial concerning the club. In other words, it's acting as a bona fide player inside the political process. And that's why it recently endorsed the mayor's November ballot proposition for a downtown baseball stadium.

Baseball Stadium? "We're playing political hardball--pun intended," says club president and Mexican Museum director Marie Acosta-Colón. "The mayor needs our help on this one. When the politicians came to us to present their pro and con positions on the propositions, I knew it was a victory." Mayor Agnos, perhaps the most liberal big-city mayor in the country was reportedly less than enthusiastic about the club's formation. Today he talks like a fan. "The Arts Democratic Club has given a voice to the arts community," Agnos observed. "And that enables them to work with politicians on behalf of artists, rather than against them." Does the club have a long-range strategy? "We're going to be taking strong stands on endorsements of candidates for, say, the board of education. . . . The message is: Don't expect our endorsements without a progressive position on arts education. Changing demographics certainly demand more intense scrutiny of arts allocations. Put another way, we're trying to combat the Republican agenda of cultural conservatism. In this Democratic town," Acosta-Colón beamed, "we're forcing politicians to take our concerns seriously. We won't be denied."

FOLLOW UP: April 23, 1991

Tire of other people running New York into the ground on your behalf? The new Arts Coalition of Independent Democrats will be doing its damnedest to ensure that progressive, arts-sensitive voices get heard in those smoky downtown (and Albany) rooms where decisions get made. The group's concerns are not narrowly focused on the arts-housing, health insurance, civil rights, and censorship head its agenda--nor is this an arts-workers-only organization. "Anyone who voted for the losing Democrats in the last three presidential elections will likely feel at home," ACID member Cliff Scott quipped.

What can ACID accomplish? The spectacularly successful San Francisco Arts Democratic Club provides a role model. One of the largest Democratic clubs in that city, the two-year-old group has also become a surprisingly heavy political hitter. It's played varied roles in beating back state arts council funding cutbacks, pressing for arts-attuned housing policies, and getting Mayor Art Agnos to act on his unfulfilled campaign promise to appoint an arts liaison. (He chose one of the club's founders.) New York's appallingly parochial, clubhouse politics is likely to preclude the virtually instant success enjoyed by the Bay Area group, but somebody's got to think of long-term strategies, right?