MELROSE — On Saturday, March 29, Mayor Jen Grigoraitis delivered the following remarks at the Melrose Creative Alliance 2025 Arts Summit:
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to join you today!
Thank you to the entire team at the Melrose Creative Alliance for your work in gathering us today and for all that you do. Thanks also to the Melrose Cultural Council, the Melrose Co Op Foundation, and the Melrose Rotary Club, who support the Alliance.
I’m extremely proud and honored to be the mayor of Melrose — a community that consistently punches far above its weight in the arts and cultural realm, thanks to many in this room. We’re home to the longest-running local orchestra in the country, a beautiful and historic performance space at Memorial Hall, a thriving non-profit arts center at Follow Your Art Community Studios, a storefront for local creatives at Paper and Clay, an annual juried art show from Melrose Arts, dynamic performing arts at our upper school campus (go see Grease! next weekend), and countless artists, musicians and performers of all stripes. The arts — and your creativity and effort — make our city brighter, more welcoming and more alive.
And right now, in this moment, we especially need you and your partnership. Every day in the news, we learn new ways that the federal government is stripping funding from all aspects of our lives, including its support of arts and culture, and we will feel that here at home. We are watching national institutions like the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian museums contend with tightening restrictions around what is considered art, often solely based on who made it. It is a time of a lot of darkness and fear and worry, and especially in those moments, we need to uplift and support those of you that bring beauty and creativity and community, however you as the creative define it, into our shared world.
Here in Melrose, there can be a theme of residents asking the City to “be creative” (which is not the same as being a creative) as we continue to contend with stagnant or reduced budgets and rising costs. And we have been grateful to partner with our arts and culture community in our efforts to do more with less. Last year, my administration had the opportunity to strategize with members of the arts and cultural community from the then Messina Fund Board and the Melrose Cultural Council Board to rethink the way that the City supports cultural and creative initiatives in the community. We entrusted the balance of the Melrose Messina Fund for the Arts ($20,000!) to the Melrose Cultural Council, given its successful track record of finding the best programs, initiatives and projects for those funds. And it worked! The MCC grew its grantmaking efforts and has supported dozens of proposals. Although City finances are extremely constrained this year, I intend to request another $20,000 transfer to the Cultural Council to continue to support their great work. My office was also able to use $3,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to support outstanding Messina Fund grant applications to ensure a seamless transition and not leave any program without the promised funding.
Mentioning the City’s finances brings us to a more somber topic. Just like communities all over Massachusetts, Melrose is facing rapidly escalating costs for level services that far outpace our revenue sources. Last June, my administration sought a Proposition 2 1⁄2 override, but this proposal was rejected by the voters. City initiatives and capacity have contracted accordingly since last summer. One of the positions lost because of that election was our economic development director, leaving us without a dedicated City employee to engage with our business, arts, and culture communities.
So, we got creative. I want to thank Lauren Grymek, whom many of you know and serves as my Chief of Staff, for her continued dedication to our arts, culture, and business communities, even as she does what feels like seven other full-time jobs. Lauren and City staff sought the following grants and opportunities to support arts and culture in Melrose including:
- We secured $20,000 through the Massachusetts Gaming Mitigation Fund to support Project: Pop-up during this past holiday season featuring artists, makers and entrepreneurs in downtown Melrose, a partnership made possible by the Melrose Family YMCA, and we have applied again for this funding to offer the program later this year.
- My administration successfully applied for a grant through MAPC’s Technical Assistance Program for strategic planning for Memorial Hall as a regional arts and cultural venue.
- And, we applied, for the first time, for MAPC’s Making it Public annual placemaking and public art grant (unfortunately we were not selected, and we will try again).
- We are currently working with Follow Your Art Community Studios on a grant to add a new public art display in Melrose.
- And, when the Mass Cultural Council’s application for a Cultural District reopens, we will be looking at the best path forward for the City to apply.
- And we have been proud event sponsors and partners for the community, including providing nearly $30,000 in city support for the Chamber of Commerce’s four signature community events (Victorian Fair, Main Street Trick or Treat, Home for the Holidays, and Summer Stroll) alone, plus additional support for other events and programs that reach across all of our demographics, interests and passions.
So, like all of you, we have learned to be resilient in the face of our challenges. But we know that grants alone cannot fix the financial challenges Melrose is facing. Many of the biggest impacts of this year’s budget cuts and more reductions on the horizon fall on our public schools, which represent by far the largest share of the City budget and therefore bear the most impacts of cuts.
When cuts come, we often have little choice but to draw back electives and extracurriculars— realms that nearly always include the performing and visual arts.
As you all take time today to think about the future of the arts in Melrose, please also consider our individual and collective agency to shape that future. I intend to seek a Proposition 2 1⁄2 override question to permanently increase the funding available for all City and School services in November’s election. I would love to come before you next year to talk about what we will be adding across the City thanks to a successful override vote, but that can only happen if we all think about how we can make that a reality for our community. I am asking for your help.
We can pursue big ideas for the City’s future—goals like economic development, cultural initiatives, conservation and recreation—but we must first secure the City’s present.
And there’s plenty to do before then. We’re grateful for the collaboration of the Creative Alliance and the Chamber of Commerce on the City’s 175th birthday celebrations. This event is going to be a great opportunity to honor and thank our extraordinary, volunteer-powered community, and to have a little fun. We hope that you’ll join us to celebrate (and we welcome your sponsorship proposals)!
Thank you all for the opportunity to join you this morning. Thank you for all that you do for Melrose.