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Arts Stimulus Part II

By Jeffrey B. Cohen

July 09, 2009

Last week, the city announced just which organizations got a piece of the $1.1 million stimulus pie.

This week, we bring you a little more info. Below find a spreadsheet that lists (on three separate worksheets) which organizations said they were interested, which ones applied, and which ones got funded. Dollar amounts are included.

ArtsStimulus.xls

Councilman Luis Cotto, one of the ten people on the selection committee, said he's taken a little heat since the news broke - mostly from folks who didn't get money.

"When people don't understand the process, and when you're passionate about what you do...yeah, it's human nature," said Cotto.

Bruce Rubenstein, a city attorney making noise and vying to run the city's Democratic Town Committee, is giving a little heat, too. He questions whether certain organizations got money because of political connections - take, for instance, the Billings Forge Community Works, where Cotto had a contract until last month.

Cotto said criticisms like Rubenstein's are off base. The process was fair and based on scoring by 10 people, Cotto said. And, in his case, he didn't take part in the discussions or scoring about his former employer.

Besides which, Cotto said, he worked for other organizations that applied for but didn't get money.

"I used to work at the Bushnell," Cotto said. "They didn't get a penny."