The ABC’s of Murder

MURDER CREEK & THE ARTS

A Statement from the Cultural Community

OPINION / COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE

Murder Creek did not lose its soul overnight.

It eroded quietly—when funding disappeared, when venues closed one by one, when artists were asked to “wait a little longer” while priorities shifted elsewhere.

Long before any initiative existed, the arts were holding this town together.

WHAT PEOPLE FORGET

Art does not survive on optimism alone.

It survives on:

Space

Time

Stability

When those disappear, culture doesn’t protest loudly. It disappears politely.

Many of the theaters, galleries, and festivals people now claim to miss were operating on borrowed time years ago. Volunteers carried them. Passion sustained them. Promises were made.

Promises were not kept.

WHY PEOPLE ARE WORRIED NOW

We are told the ABC Initiative will protect the arts.

We want to believe that.

But when creativity is reduced to a line item, it becomes vulnerable to audits, delays, and interpretations made by people who do not create.

Art is not inefficient.
It is fragile.

And fragile things do not survive constant restructuring.

A HARD TRUTH

If the arts in Murder Creek collapse, they will not come back.

Once a stage goes dark, it rarely lights again.

Once a community stops gathering to tell its own stories, something irreplaceable is lost—no matter how successful the redevelopment looks on paper.

WHAT THIS IS NOT

This is not resistance to progress.
This is not nostalgia.

This is a reminder that culture cannot be paused and restarted at convenience.

Some things must be protected before they are measured.