This year the Utah Legislature voted on eight bills supporting arts and culture in Utah. Recently the Utah Cultural Advocacy Alliance released a report card presenting how the group feels Utah legislators are doing in regards to supporting arts and humanities.
The card gave good grades for senators and representatives who supported art-related bills, as well as if they were involved in committees that support the arts. Chrystal Young-Otterstrom, the executive director of the alliance, said the report card showed an encouraging story.
“We were thrilled to see how broad support for arts and culture was across the Utah legislature," Young-Otterstrom said. "We were also excited to see that support for arts and humanities was consistent among republicans and democrats.”
Young-Otterstrom said one bill that was supported by the alliance is HCR 2, which recognizes and funds educational celebrations of the 100-year anniversary of the end of World War 1. She said HCR2 is only one bill that is aimed at educating the community.
“HCR4, applauds 50 years of public television," Young-Otterstrom said. "Then it also acknowledges the fact that Philo T. Farnsworth, who’s the inventor of television was born here in Utah. We felt that bill was especially important to come from the Utah legislature right now… because as you’re probably aware, funding for public broadcasting has been under attack from President Trump's Administration. Thankfully congress has decided to fund public broadcasting after all but we felt that that was an important bill to come from our Utah Legislature.”
