I'm Into This Place

When We Get Loud, It Works | Arts, Heritage & Science Week -📍 Olympia, WA

• Season 2 • Episode 4

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Are you ready to get loud? Arts, Heritage, and Science Week happens every February, and you’re invited. Inspire WA hosts constituents from every district in the state to go to Olympia to advocate for arts, heritage, and science. Adriana’s heading to the capitol on Wednesday, but before she goes, she’s giving us an overview of some of the important bills to keep an eye on during this legislative session, including the WAVE Act, a new bill to support public radio and media called HB 2579, and tax bill SB 5814. Can’t make it to Olympia? You can still make your voice heard. Let’s go!

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📍 I'm Into This Place is Clark County, Washington's arts, culture, and heritage podcast. We take you behind the scenes with the artists, makers, and community leaders shaping our local culture - from art and music to food, history, and heritage. Find more at imintothisplace.com.

When We Get Loud, It Works | Arts, Heritage & Science Week -📍 Olympia, WA


Adriana: This week is AHS Week. Arts Heritage, and Science Week happens every February, and it's where Inspire Washington invites constituents from every district in the state to go to Olympia to advocate for arts, heritage, and science.

I'm heading to the Capitol on Wednesday with some of my fellow District 20 constituents. I also went last year, and I'm really excited to get back into those representatives offices and make sure our voices are heard. Now, before I go any further, if you are a resident of Washington State, I hope you'll consider joining me

there. It is not too late. You can find a link in the show notes or by going to inspirewashington.org and clicking on events. But even if you're listening to this after AHS week has passed, there's a ton of great information in this episode about what's going on with this legislative session, and the things that we can advocate for by calling our representatives or just getting involved locally.

Welcome to, I’m Into This Place, your deep dive into the local arts, culture, and heritage of Clark County. From fabulous new restaurants to quirky art installations to the historical sites you never even knew to look for, we’re inviting you along. Whether you're a Clark County connoisseur or just starting to get to know her, get ready to fall head over heels for this place we call home. I'm your host, Adriana Baer, and I'm into this place. Let's go. 

I wanna give you an overview of the main issues facing arts, culture, and heritage in Washington right now as the short legislative session has begun.

It runs through March 12th, meaning you have from now until then to reach out to your reps and tell them what matters to you. There are a number of important issues on the table this year, and I've put a bunch of resources in the show notes and on the episode page so you can click through and get all the info you need.

 But for today, I'm going to talk specifically about three bills. One that creates regulations to protect artists, musicians, and audiences from ticketing scams. That's Senate Bill 6175, also called the Washington Access and Venue Equity or WAVE Act. And I'll talk about the retail sales tax, SB5184, that went into effect in October and is generally wreaking havoc on small businesses and arts organizations. And I'm going to talk about HB 2579. This is a brand new bill which promotes and funds public media and digital equity.

My reporting today is relying heavily on resources provided by Inspire Washington, ArtsWA, the Washington State Arts Commission, Washington State Historical Society, and Washington Nightlife Music Association. Inspire Washington's mission is to increase public access to arts, heritage, and science activities through advocacy, resource development, education, and coalition building.

Their job is to share all of these opportunities with us and to help us be strategic with our advocacy. So we're using our voice on things that really matter and we don't burn out. ArtsWA is here to be a catalyst for the arts, advancing the role of the arts in the lives of individuals and communities throughout the state.They are our statewide governmental arts agency. 

Okay, let's jump into the WAVE Act. The official language says that this establishes a comprehensive regulatory framework for ticket sales to restore transparency, protect consumers from predatory secondary market practices and safeguard Washington's creative economy.

This bill helps ticket buyers and ticket sellers, especially nonprofits and small organizations. If this bill passes, sellers have to give you the real cost of the ticket upfront, so no hiding fees until the end. There's a cap on resale value, meaning that no more than 10% of the original ticket price can be charged if you're reselling a ticket.

It bans bots that are out to either inflate ticket prices, artificially sell tickets they don't actually have, or break into secure ticketing softwares. It guarantees refunds if an event is canceled. And the act recognizes that the ticket market has become basically a hot mess, confusing consumers, and then making it really hard for local venues to keep prices affordable for their communities.

So here's what we need to advocate for. Senate Bill 6175, which is being put forward by Senator Lovelett, it's called “Concerning Ticket Sales.” We want to let them know, all of our representatives, that we are PRO Senate Bill 6175. So we are PRO making sure that small local venues, and nonprofits, and groups that are just trying to put on a good show for their people, um, are protected.

And people who are really excited to go see major stars like, you know, Taylor Swift and whatnot, um, they're also protected by making sure that they're not getting scammed in any way. If you wanna know more about the WAVE Act, you can look in the show notes. There's a one page document there that you can take a look at.

 HB 2579, which is promoting and funding public media and digital equity, is being co-sponsored by 14 different representatives, so it's got a lot of support currently in the House. And briefly, it requires the Department of Commerce to establish a public media broadcaster program and a digital equity program to award funds to ensure access to the internet and non-commercial media. They're going to be paying for this through a 20 cents per month per subscriber tax on wireless, cell, prepaid wireless, VoIP, and landlines to fund the programs, provide grants, and administer the programs.

So this is really, in my mind, and I am not quoting them here, this is just my interpretation, is that part of this is in response to the demise of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the world of hurt that so many of our independent media radio stations are in right now. With the closing of CPB, we are losing massive amounts of support for local, independent, non-commercial radio.

And this hits rural areas especially hard because so many of them have spotty cell service. Uh, no access to internet or wireless internet. And it is through independent radio stations and public radio that a lot of those important disaster announcements are made.

Local weather, what's going on and how to get in touch, and what you need to know in case of an environmental disaster, like a wildfire, a flood, etcetera. And so besides the lack of public media and all of the wonderful programming that independent media and independent journalists provide for, our communities, this is also a life saving service. 

So there's a lot of interesting information in this bill, which I've linked in the show notes as well. This is the sort of human language version, so it's easy to read. It really prioritizes community public radio or public televisions, organizations, non-commercial, non-religious, and not-for-profit organizations. Broadcasters that do not include a paywall for core program services - this is really important - the access is free. Organizations that have provided service in the state for a minimum of seven years prior to the award, so really has staying power. Organizations that adhere to professional editorial standards. Those whose services include public safety, emergency broadcasting, public service announcements, access to the arts, community event promotion, yay, and not-for-profit partnerships. 

Organizations that make music accessible to everyone. Build audiences for the arts by promoting events happening in the community, and provide a platform for artists to reach their audience and build careers. This is crucial. Organizations whose service includes community activation, free community events, calendaring, educational impacts, partnership with public schools and services for young adults after high school graduation.

Demonstrated economic impact. And operations including public transparency and reporting and impact reports or audits. So all of this is to say that this money that will be collected is going to these types of organizations to do this good work. So if you'd like to make your voice known either way, pro, con, or other on HB 2579, please reach out to your representatives and let them know your thoughts.

Okay. Senate bill 5814. So this is the bill that went into effect in October. It's a new sales tax, and essentially, the recent expansion of what activities are subject to a Washington retail sales tax is a pretty significant financial burden for financially stressed cultural organizations and businesses.

This tax is resulting in increased costs for community members to participate in science, heritage, and arts programs. The basic gist, and the thing that is most important for the purposes of talking about arts and culture, is that under 5814, some educational activities offered by nonprofits are now considered eligible for, um, sales tax because they're now considered retail sales. 

Those include workshops, classes, training programs, and seminars like art classes, music lessons, summer camps. Now, the good news is, is that performances, fundraising events, and movies are not taxable, which is great, but if you charge a fee for a class or a workshop, you are most likely going to need to be collecting retail sales tax and paying B&O tax.

And this is just a pretty significant burden on you if you are like, I don't know, a piano teacher or something. Now it doesn't apply to one-on-one lessons, but anything with more than one participant is eligible to be taxed. We're also getting taxed now on services that we buy or even sell; that includes IT, web development, advertising services.

So we're talking like social media, SEO, marketing and design, and temp staff. The tax is really hard on small businesses, but it was created to help with the budget shortfall, and we want to keep sharing our voice that a 5184 tax exemption needs to include schools and small nonprofits. 

There are a bunch of amendments being recommended. If you're following along with your pencil, the bills related to 5814 are House Bill 2257, Senate Bill 6113, House Bill 2121, House Bill 2101, Senate Bill 5980. And those are linked in the show notes. You wanna find those bills and you wanna tell your story about why you wanna make sure that nonprofits, arts organizations, schools, and individual teachers aren't subject to this sales tax.

If you wanna leave a public comment on a bill, you're going to look at the very last link in the list in the show notes. This is gonna take you to a page where you can comment directly on a bill and share your personal or professional story about how this bill or tax is affecting you. 

Okay. The other issues on the table this legislative session can be found through those links I'm sharing in the show notes or you can go to inspirewashington.org and click on “advocacy” to join their Inspiration League and get action alerts sent directly to your email.

They make it super easy to click through and let your opinions be known, and much of the time, the action alerts have nothing to do with calling anyone on the actual telephone. There you go. 

I'm gonna list a few other things that Inspire Washington believes will have the biggest impact on the arts and history and heritage sector as a whole. Mostly maintenance. In other words, “please don't take our money away,” and some key money that would prevent the loss of jobs or existing programs. 

So first, ArtsWA, which is our government agency, kind of similar to the National Endowment for the Arts’ role in our government. Um, the governor's proposed budget includes cuts that would reduce ArtsWA’s grant funding by $600,000. This would significantly impact the level of support available for statewide creative programs and partnerships.

So we really wanna be advocating that ArtsWA’s budget not be cut. Similarly, we want to maintain the $13.7 million biennial operational funding for the Washington State Historical Society. Essentially, what that means is, “please don't cut the Washington State Historical Society budget, either.”

They are both, um, working on capital projects, and infrastructure work - work that has to be done in order for these organizations to actually run, and for the people who work for them to still have their jobs. I also wanted to point out something pretty cool that's going on at the Washington State Historical Society.

Definitely check out the This is Native Land exhibit. This is a permanent exhibition that explains the sovereign status of tribes, confronts historic and current challenges faced by native communities, and explores themes of resilience, joy, and cultural revitalization. They've also got Washington State America's 250th.

Oh boy, are we gonna hear a lot about that this year, everybody. America's turning 250 and we all have programming about it. In Washington, we're being invited to reflect on the principles of our democracy and strengthen our communities by sharing and supporting local history. Sounds pretty good to me.

So thanks so much for listening to this explanation of what we're up to in Olympia this week. If you want to join us, it's not too late, please sign up on the Inspire Washington website. Or you can just take note of all the important things going on, sign up for those action alerts, and click through when you get them in your email inbox.

That's the easiest, fastest, and, least burdensome way for you to make your voice heard, and to leave all the research and the heavy lifting to the people who know what they're up to, and the rest of us are following along knowing that we're in good hands with the advocacy happening all across the state.

Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Adriana Baer. I'm the producer, host, and editor of I'm Into This Place. You can find out more about us at imnitothisplace.com. See you out there!



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Adriana Baer

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