Event organizers accuse Pittsburgh of sitting on federal covid relief funds

When the covid-19 pandemic struck, local event organizers like Dena Stanley were left scrambling to find ways to keep their celebrations alive.

Stanley, co-founder of Pittsburgh Pride Group, said the organization couldn’t put its annual Pride parade and festival together during the pandemic because of a lack of funding.

The annual celebration attracted more than 100,000 people this year, she said, including First Lady Jill Biden.

Stanley said she was “really disheartened” to learn that the city had federal covid-19 relief dollars that could’ve helped the major event during the pandemic.

But event organizers said Tuesday that they didn’t know how to access it for their events, which were hindered by the pandemic.

“The money should be available to us,” Stanley told City Council Tuesday. “If it’s here for festivals to use — especially marginalized community members that are putting festivals like this on — we should be able to use it.”

It’s not clear why Stanley and other event organizers were unaware that money might be available to help their groups bounce back from the pandemic, but Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith hopes to fix that problem.

On Tuesday, Kail-Smith, D-West End, introduced legislation to take whatever remains of $2 million in coronavirus relief funding that Pittsburgh set aside for the arts and move it into a designated fund to make it easier to access and distribute.

Kail-Smith said the $2 million meant for the arts should be used to help artists and organizers whose events were impacted by the pandemic.

Pittsburgh received $335 million in general coronavirus relief dollars.

“It’s very important that these funds are distributed to the organizations [they were] meant to go to,” said William “B” Marshall, who has been vocal in calling for city funding for his well-known Juneteenth celebration. “For the city to withhold funding to these organizations, it’s a travesty. They need the funding to be able to continue the positive work they’re doing.”

Pittsburgh allocated $125,000 from the $2 million pot to a city-sponsored Juneteenth event and is considering distributing the same amount to Marshall’s upcoming festival.

Specifics on how the fund proposed by Kail-Smith would work, who would be eligible for the cash and any restrictions on its use are still being hammered out, Kail-Smith said.

“What prompted me to do it is I was receiving phone calls from organizations who do events who were concerned they weren’t receiving the relief they needed,” Kail-Smith said.

Day Bracey, whose Barrel and Flow event supports Black businesses and artists, said he supported Kail-Smith’s proposal.

“Thus far, we’ve gotten zero dollars of support from the city to make this festival possible,” he said, though the event supports local artists and businesses.

Kail-Smith acknowledged there are “some concerns” about how the federal funds could be used to support festivals because they come with various restrictions on their use.

She declined to say whether she believed all of the remaining federal money could be under contract by the end of the year. If it’s not, the city will lose it.

Because of the timeline, Kail-Smith said she was unsure how events like Juneteenth and Pride could potentially benefit, since their events for this calendar year are already over.

Peter McDevitt, director of council’s budget office, said that about $10.7 million remains in unallocated covid relief funds. He said Tuesday that he did not know offhand how much remained available for the arts.

The measure is set to appear on council’s agenda next week for discussion.