Basshead

Gordon said that learning to respect local artists is an evolutionary process that the county has already gone through. When Tropiculture Miami, the county's cultural affairs department, makes a recommendation, the county commissioners have enough confidence in Tropiculture's judgement to approve it with little debate, he explained.

Like Tropiculture, the relatively new Miami Arts and Entertainment Council is currently an advisory board of sorts, making recommendations on who receives money that are taken under advisement by the city commissioners.

"It has taken the county twenty years to get there," said Gordon, noting when Tropiculture was first formed in the Seventies, it was also used to fund special events instead of cultural arts groups that operated year-round. "We have to go through that same process." Until that day arrives, however, Miami's local arts groups will continue to go scraping for cash wherever they can find it while the city's administration remains starstruck.