The Arts Commission on Monday passed a resolution to give the city of Austin's Economic Development Department four more weeks to produce a recommendation on how best to disperse the $200,000 allocated through the mayor’s Music and Creative Ecosystem Omnibus to assist the city’s entertainment venues. The Jan. 26 directive from council established a Performing Arts Venues and Art Spaces Crisis Funding Program–and funded it with $200,000­–to provide loans to renovate existing spaces into venues as well as to preserve existing venues and creative spaces. The responsibility to create the program and determine the specific allocation of the $200,000 was tasked to the Economic Development Department. However, on Monday Arts Commission members said they have yet to receive any word of progress since the program’s Jan. 26 creation. While commission members expressed frustration with the lack of progress, they appeared unsure how to get the program moving. “I guess we’re talking to a wall here in a sense because we can’t direct anybody,” said Lulu Flores, the commission’s chair. “We want to light a fire to make sure this gets done already. We have yet to see a draft.” Commission members also expressed concern over a lack of communication with staff, disagreeing with staff’s assumption that the recommendation that the item needed to go back to council, and the program's creation and funds were in the hands of staff with the guidance of the commission. Initially, members suggested a two-week deadline but decided May 15—the commission’s next regular meeting—would suffice.