Cindy Layton has always oriented toward public service, and she has not stopped serving Jefferson City since her time on the City Council.
Layton, who served as a 4th Ward councilwoman from 2003-09, is stepping back from the Cultural Arts Commission after six years and getting ready to serve in a new capacity. The City Council is expected to approve Layton's appointment to the Parks and Recreation Commission at its regular meeting tonight.
For Layton, it's all part of her natural inclination to serve.
"I've always been pretty service-oriented in the community," Layton said. "It's just kind of progressed over the years."
Layton said she started public service with her very first job, when she worked for a congressman in Washington, D.C., and simply has never left it.
"Public service is a great opportunity to give back to the community," Layton said. "And the community has been very good to us."
In Layton's time on the City Council, one of her favorite projects, and possibly most notable, was starting the Cultural Arts Commission, which grew out of public requests for art funding.
"When I was on the City Council, we had people coming to us as a City Council requesting funds for different art-type projects," Layton said. "It was always really difficult to say no to one and yes to another. There was no process."
So, she said, the idea was to give people a venue to come and ask for funds through an established process, which became the Cultural Arts Commission in 2009, and Layton become the first commission chair. She said the commission also wanted to help grow art in the community by offering assistance to other art organizations to help grow and market their business.
This year, the commission is able to help 16 organizations in funding for events and programs that enhance the culture of Jefferson City.
"Sometimes we forget how art touches our lives," Layton said, pointing to murals around town and other completed public art projects. "It does take a long time to get something new established, but I think it's really starting to have feet and walk on its own."
Layton said the commission also has helped increase the amount available for public art, taking the small amount from the city (in 2015, the commission was budgeted $6,000 from the city) and combining that with grant opportunities to increase the amount available.
"I think it's great to at least double, if not triple, the amount the city invests," she said.
Layton said the process of starting the Cultural Arts Commission was "eye-opening," bringing so many different people and organizations to the table to discuss public art and how to increase the visibility of the arts to the community. And she's been happy to watch it grow and change since its inception.
"It's nice to see that people are still willing to serve on the commission," Layton said. "I can see it evolve in many different ways in the future."
After serving six years on the commission, Layton said she was term-limited and needed to step back, but she is not ready to stop serving the public. Mayor Carrie Tergin has proposed appointing Layton to the Parks and Recreation Commission, which was approved by the Council Committee on Administration last week. The full City Council will vote on the appointment tonight, but it is expected to be approved.
Layton said she has always been interested in parks, from simply using park facilities with her children to working with parks when she was employed by the Office of Administration, where she helped coordinate an expansion of the greenway trail on the east side.
"I've been involved in that kind of thing all along," Layton said.
And the Parks and Recreation Commission's latest project, the partnership with Lincoln University for a proposed multipurpose building, is particularly exciting for Layton, who said she has always seen the importance of partnerships in the community. When she worked for the Office of Administration, she said she dealt with intergovernmental grants, meaning she has experience dealing with many different governments, organizations and entities on a single project.
"Partnerships were key, and my background in that will just continue to help in the partnerships in the community," Layton said. "Since I was on the City Council, we've been building that building. I'm so glad to see it come to fruition."