Plans for Pittsburgh festival fund move forward but lack key element: money

Pittsburgh City Council on Tuesday voted to move ahead with a plan to create a fund to support arts and cultural events that were impacted by the covid-19 pandemic — but they don’t seem to have any money for it.

Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith, D-West End, last month introduced legislation to create a fund that would allow event organizers whose festivals or celebrations were impacted by the pandemic to receive money from the city’s allotment of federal covid relief dollars.

“These are covid relief dollars, and that’s what they’re intended to do,” she said Tuesday.

The city allocated $2 million of its $335 million federal covid relief money for the arts. Kail-Smith initially indicated she believed some of that money might be available for the new fund.

It’s not.

All of that money has been “spoken for” for other initiatives, council finance chair Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill, said.

“There is not going to be any money left in that fund,” she said.

Kail-Smith said she might be able to find “different funds,” but did not elaborate on where she might locate extra cash in the city budget. She said she hoped to “figure it all out” before council takes a final vote next week.

She also suggested she might amend the legislation to include provisions that would require event organizers, in order to receive money, to prove they were impacted by the pandemic and have a history of hosting events that generate an economic impact for the city.

Despite questions over where officials would find money for the fund or how much money the fund would contain, City Council in a preliminary vote Tuesday unanimously supported the measure. Councilmen R. Daniel Lavelle and Khari Mosley were not present for the vote.

City Council is expected to take a final vote next week.