FORT WORTH, Texas (Aug. 29, 2023) — The Fort Worth Botanic Garden invites guests to join us for the third annual ¡Celebramos! A Celebration of Latin American Culture & Heritage, from Sept. 8 through Oct. 15. This four-week extravaganza will include 18 separate events, including dance and musical performances, art exhibitions, food, fashion, shopping opportunities, and special after-hour events.
New offerings this year include a Latin American Flag Parade featuring Ballet Folklorico, a Tequila & Margarita Festival(21+ only), and a Family Fun Day that will top off the series of events. All events have been designed to celebrate Latin America’s vibrant cultures and traditions.
"¡Celebramos! is a wonderful showcase of the richness of Latin American culture, “ said Estela Martinez-Stuart, FWBG Board Member and community leader. “It’s amazing that the Garden is providing opportunities for our community to come together to learn and share through art, entertainment, and traditions in such a beautiful setting."
Festivities begin Sept. 8, with an After Hours in the Garden: ¡Celebramos! Kickoff Event.Most daytime events are free with Garden admission. After-hour events may require an additional fee.
DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS: A tribute to Día de Los Muertos will take place Oct. 28-Nov. 2. Guests will be able to enjoy more than 46,000 marigolds (Taishan Orange & Coco Gold) that will be “rolled out” to create a show-stopping “carpet” down the Rose Garden stairs. These strongly scented flowers are believed to help deceased ancestors find their way home to the ofrendas prepared for them in conjunction with this special day. Stay tuned for more information about this spectacular floral display.
Arts Fort Worth Unveils The Heart of Gold Awards
Fort Worth, Texas (Tuesday, August 29, 2023) - Arts Fort Worth is pleased to announce The Heart of Gold Awards, an esteemed annual event recognizing outstanding contributions to the arts community with the addition of two new award categories: Advocate for the Arts and Emerging Leaders in the Arts. The awards will be presented alongside the prestigious Heart of Gold Award, each recognizing exemplary dedication and advocacy within the arts sector.
The Heart of Gold Awards, now in its 11th year, continues to celebrate visionaries, creatives, and philanthropists who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to arts and culture and share Arts Fort Worth’s commitment to creating an environment that nurtures art forms as diverse as Fort Worth.
The Advocate for the Arts award honors an individual or organization that has shown unparalleled dedication to advocating for the arts. In this award’s first year, Arts Fort Worth recognizes Fort Worth Worth’s Art Commission Chair Estrus Tucker for his tireless efforts to promote accessibility to and through the arts. Tucker is President & CEO, and co-founder of DEI Consultants LLC, a national consulting firm serving corporations, nonprofits, and local governments in designing and implementing strategies that advance diversity, equity and inclusion.
The Emerging Leaders in the Arts award will celebrate talented professionals who have made significant strides leadership in their respective fields and highlights the crucial role and the invaluable impact of emerging talents in shaping the future of the community through the arts here in Fort Worth. The inaugural Emerging Leaders in the Arts Award recognizes Armond Vance (Working Artist/Performer/Writer), Wesely Kirk (Community Advocacy), Dr. Stephanie Love (Education), Jesse Borries (Philanthropy), and Ayesha Ganguly (Arts Administration).
In addition to the new awards, the Heart of Gold Award, will continue to shine a spotlight on a philanthropist, patron, or artist who has made an indelible mark on the arts through their extraordinary contributions, support, and dedication. Among her many successes is the nationally recognized nonprofit organization Imagination Celebration Fort Worth, a program she developed in collaboration with community arts and cultural leaders and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Ginger Head-Gearheart, a lifelong innovator and connector in the arts embodies the spirit of the Heart of Gold Award.
"The local arts community is built on passion and dedication, and these new awards will celebrate those who have gone above and beyond to ensure that the arts thrive and continue to inspire and connect us all," said Wesley Gentle, Executive Director and President of Arts Fort Worth who continued, “We are fortunate to have such dedication and compassion personified in each of the people honored this year.”
Fort Worth Report Article, August 22, 2023 - Fort Worth is putting $7.2 million more toward the Central City/Panther Island flood control project — though the city won’t ultimately pay most of the bill.
City Council members approved a $6 million construction contract to move a storm drain line near the intersection of Greenleaf and Kansas streets, just south of the White Settlement bridge. S.J. Louis Construction of Texas LTD presented the lowest bid, with construction expected to begin this month and be completed by August 2024.
The city must relocate utilities and stormwater lines to make way for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dig a 1.5-mile-long bypass channel that will reroute a part of the Trinity River near downtown Fort Worth. To meet the Army Corps’ timeline, the city must complete relocations by the end of 2024.
To pay for the Greenleaf project, the city will issue short-term debt notes known as commercial paper. As the local sponsor of the federal project, Tarrant Regional Water District is expected to reimburse the city for utility relocation projects on an annual basis. After the reimbursement, the city expects to pay about $100,000 for staff time spent on the Greenleaf relocation.
The project will relocate the storm drain system and replace eight inlets draining into the future south bypass channel. Construction crews are also expected to install specialized water quality treatment inlet devices, requiring a higher level of maintenance than the existing system’s inlets and increasing costs by $2,400 per year.
The project is one of eight stormwater relocation and 14 utility relocation projects related to the Central City flood control project.
Relocations at Grand Avenue, Viola Street, Main Street and Greenleaf Street — most located near Fort Worth’s Northside community — are expected to begin construction this year. Construction began on Calhoun Street and North Commerce Street near 8th Avenue in July, with the project expected to wrap by October.
Next week, the city of Fort Worth will hold a public meeting discussing sewer main relocations near North Henderson and Calvert Street. The meeting will be at 6 p.m. Aug. 31 at the Tarrant Regional Water District boardroom, 800 E Northside Drive.
Haley Samsel is the environmental reporter for the Fort Worth Report. You can reach them at haley.samsel@fortworthreport.org.
Rachel Behrndt is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at rachel.behrndt@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter.
Please mark your calendars for a City of Fort Worth public meeting on Monday, August 28, 6:00-7:30 pm, regarding the attached Zoning Ordinance text amendment. We’ll provide a separate email with the meeting location in the West 7th area once confirmed.
For property zoned “MU-2” High Intensity Mixed-Use, this proposed text amendment would require applicants for new bars larger than 2,000 square feet to request a Conditional Use Permit through public hearings before the Zoning Commission and the City Council.
The City Council will consider the text amendment on Tuesday, September 12, at 6:00 pm as part of their regular meeting.
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Announces
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map
On View October 15, 2023-January 21, 2024
Memory Map is the largest and most comprehensive showcase of Smith’s career, featuring more than one hundred works. Organized thematically, the exhibition offers a new framework to consider contemporary Native American art, addressing how Smith has initiated and led some of the most pressing dialogues around land, racism, and cultural preservation. It celebrates the artist’s dedication to creativity and community, emphasizes her deep political commitments, and offers essential and potent reminders of our responsibilities to the earth and each other.
Smith engages with modern and contemporary modes of artmaking, from an idiosyncratic adoption of abstraction to American Pop Art to Neo-Expressionism. She reimagines these artistic traditions with concepts rooted in her own cultural practice to examine contemporary life in America and interpret it through Native ideology. Since the 1970s, Smith has built a visual language that includes recurring imagery such as trade canoes, horses, bison, and flags, alongside common materials like newspaper, fabric, and commercial objects. Throughout her work she addresses urgent concerns about ecological disaster, the misreading of history, and the genocide of Native Americans, while also evoking the power of kinship and education.
This exhibition is organized by Laura Phipps, Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with Caitlin Chaisson, Curatorial Project Assistant.
“Through her sophisticated use of color, materials, and humor, Smith’s work prompts important conversations about history and education—and ultimately about the obligations we have to each other and the world around us,” says Phipps. “From the inception of Memory Map, Smith and I had hoped for her messages and her art to reach audiences across the country and we are so thrilled to see them in the context of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.”
"The Modern is honored to host Jaune Quick-To-See Smith: Memory Maps. We are grateful to collaborate with the artist and the Whitney Museum on this important exhibition," says Dr. Marla Price, Director, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. "This is the first large-scale presentation of Jaune Quick-To-See Smith's work in our region, giving our community and visitors the opportunity to experience the important stories she tells throughout her groundbreaking career.”
For the third consecutive year, Fort Worth homeowners could see a decrease in the City’s property tax rate – the largest reduction in at least 30 years.
City Manager David Cooke has recommended the City Council lower the tax rate 4 cents, to 67.25 cents per $100 assessed valuation. Even with the rate decrease, the City is considering adding 106 positions in the Police Department and 76 positions in the Fire Department as part of an ongoing commitment to maintaining high levels of public safety.
The theme of the fiscal year 2024 budget is So Safe. So Clean. So Green.
Although the property tax rate would go down, a property tax bill could increase depending on the property appraisal. Earlier this summer, the City adopted an increased homestead exemption for residents who are disabled or age 65 or older that will assist those eligible taxpayers in reducing their tax burden.
The City Council has lowered the tax rate six times in the past seven years, totaling 16.25 cents. The rate has decreased from 85.50 cents per $100 assessed valuation in fiscal 2016.
The Tarrant County Appraisal District placed the total appraised value of homes and commercial properties at $115.7 billion, up 15.6% from the previous year.
Total property tax revenue is estimated to be $735 million, up $71.5 million from the previous year, or 10.8%.
The council is scheduled to approve the tax rate Tuesday, Sept. 19. The City’s new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Learn more about the City of Fort Worth budget and opportunities for engagement.
he City of Fort Worth is planning the FY2024 budget and recently asked residents what they think budget dollars should be spent on. Feedback was collected June 6-July 9, where residents had multiple avenues to provide comments and photos.
Why it matters: Like in 2022, this year the City is looking for residents to provide feedback about what they think budget dollars should be spent on. As the City focuses on the next fiscal year, the City also wants to engage residents and understand what is important to them.
The bottom line: The top requests were:
What’s next: The city manager will present the proposed budget to City Council on Aug. 8. Beginning in August, a series of community meetings will be held to get. feedback and answer questions. The final budget for FY2024 will be approved by City Council in September.
Movies That Matter, a film series program of the City of Fort Worth’s Human Relations Commission, will present Paper Tigers at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 10, at Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St.
Event details: Admission is free. Make reservations online.
About the film: Paper Tigers (2015, 102 minutes, PG-13 strong language, offensive slurs and violence) chronicles a year in the life of Lincoln High School in the community of Walla Walla, Washington. The kids who come to Lincoln have a history of truancy, behavioral problems and substance abuse. After Lincoln’s principal is exposed to research about the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences, he decides to radically change the school’s approach to discipline. With the aid of diary camera footage, the film follows six students. From getting into fights, grappling with traumatic events in their lives, and on the cusp of dropping out, they find healing, support and academic promise at Lincoln High.
View a trailer.
Movies That Matter was created in 2010 as a way to create awareness in the community about human rights issues affecting people in Fort Worth and worldwide. The series presents human rights-related film screenings and moderated discussions. The program is managed by the Diversity & Inclusion Department.
The Fort Worth Art Commission this week approved new interpretive plaques designed to foster cultural equity and provide historical context for a series of scenes depicted in murals at the Will Rogers Memorial Center.
About the artwork: Created to commemorate the Texas Centennial in 1936, two 200-foot-long, hand-painted tile murals trace the state’s settlement and industrial development. The murals were integrated into the facades of the National Register-listed Will Rogers auditorium and coliseum.
In 2019, a social media post raised concerns about the depiction of Black Texans in the auditorium mural. Alongside other agricultural workers, Black workers are depicted harvesting cotton.
The Mayor’s Office asked the Fort Worth Art Commission to seek community input and make a recommendation for responding to the concerns. Consensus emerged strongly in favor of presenting historical context for all segments of the murals.
An advisory panel recommended that permanent interpretive plaques be embedded in the plazas in front of the coliseum and auditorium. This was followed by more than two years of research and meetings with focus groups representing the diverse cultures depicted in the murals.
The goal of the project is to encourage viewers to learn more about Texas’ multifaceted history and to foster cultural equity and community understanding.
The plaque for the mosaic depicting Black fieldworkers would read:
“Use of the land and its value was changing dramatically. For the first two decades of 20th century, agriculture led the state’s economic growth. Texas produced almost one third of America’s cotton. This scene depicts tenant farming and sharecropping, systems in which freedmen, poor white, and Mexican workers farmed rented land for a share of the harvested crops. Sharecropping rarely resulted in farm ownership. After World War I (1914-1918), many laborers moved to cities for work, forcing landowners to modernize with machinery to harvest millions of acres of cotton, wheat, and other crops.”
View approved text for the other mural segments.
What’s next: City Council will be asked to consider authorizing a construction contract to fabricate, deliver and install the plaques.
The Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) and Mayor Mattie Parker recently recorded a new video about Fort Worth Safe:
https://youtu.be/17-Oz57jHvc
Why it matters: In 2022, FWPD implemented the Fort Worth Safe Violent Crime Strategy, focusing on preventing violent criminals from victimizing Fort Worth residents. Since the initiative’s implementation, there has been a 13% drop in overall violent crime in Fort Worth.
What's next: New technology and collaboration among units and agencies has helped the department increase its efforts. Additional programs have been developed to also assist in reducing violent crime.
View a list of resources and partners working together to keep Fort Worth safe.
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