Mayoral Forum on Arts, Culture Takes Place Monday

A Mayoral Forum on the Arts and Culture takes place tomorrow night.The event will include all 13 candidates running for Louisville mayor. It's being presented by the Kentucky School of Art along with several other local arts and cultural organizations.School administrative director Kasey Maier says the event was organized to help emphasize the importance of art and culture to Louisville and find out candidates' visions for the future of the arts and culture in Louisville."All of the arts can make Louisville a real cultural hot spot and that’s what we’re trying to pull together and do," she says. "And now that we have a new administration coming in, we’re trying to take advantage of that and get them in support of that."Maier says representatives of the school, the Louisville Arts and Cultural Attractions Council, Arts Kentucky, the Louisville Fund for the Arts and the University of Louisville sorted through questions they received."There were questions submitted by the community, the arts community and others," she says. "There was a committee put together that included members from this organization as well as other arts and cultural organizations. And they’ve been tightened up and forwarded to the candidates."She says candidates have already received nearly a dozen questions culled from those submitted and will be asked to answer about half of them. She says there should be time in the last portion of the two-hour forum for questions from audience members.Maier also says all the candidates welcomed the opportunity to talk about the arts and culture."I got personal phone calls back," she says. "They were really excited to participate. And the candidates who have been in the running for a while and then the new one that came in at deadline time, they were all very excited to be part of it."The forum starts at 6 p.m., Monday, at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts.