Chris Zacher Nominated for Prestigious Rex Morgan Award
On November 20, 2013 Chris Zacher was honored as a nominee for SCFD's prestigious Rex Morgan Award. The award recognizes Denver residents whose leadership has made a significant impact on the arts, scientific and cultural community in the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District.
Recipients must have advocated on behalf of the cultural community; demonstrated vision and persistence in pursuing goals to benefit the cultural community; promoted community participation in pursuing cultural objectives; worked as a volunteer supporting cultural initiatives or institutions; acted to benefit a municipality or county region[s]; initiated, collaborated, or supported innovative policies to enhance the regional cultural community.
Rex Morgan
About Rex Morgan
Rex Morgan served as a leader, volunteer, and advocate who pursued a regional vision, SCFD, that was inclusive and for the benefit of the cultural community and the residents of the metropolitan area. He was a civic activist and trustee of the Denver Art Museum whose vision was to create a thriving cultural community for all citizens. During the 1980s, Rex Morgan and other community leaders lobbied the legislature, organized the original SCFD ballot initiative and championed implementation of the 0.1% retail sales and use tax.
About SCFD
Since 1989, Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) has distributed funds from a 1/10 of 1% sales and use tax to cultural facilities throughout the seven-county Denver, Colorado metropolitan area. The funds support cultural facilities whose primary purpose is to enlighten and entertain the public through the production, presentation, exhibition, advancement and preservation of art, music, theatre, dance, zoology, botany, natural history and cultural history.
The distribution budget for scientific and cultural organizations in the seven-county area is approximately $40 million annually and $900 million as been contributed to date. As a result, the Denver Metro area is now in the national spotlight and has been elevated in stature to a world-class cultural center.
Voters reaffirmed their support of the SCFD tax in 1994 and again in 2004 by voting to extend the SCFD tax with 65% voter approval. Voters will have another opportunity to extend the SCFD in November 2016 before the June 2018 sunset date.