"In more than a decade, the Lee’s Summit Arts Council has helped shape the community’s direction in entertainment and cultural offerings, complimenting fast growth of housing and shopping centers, all the pieces which made Lee’s Summit one of the region’s booming cities.

The city now has a community symphony and theater group, building on longtime support for arts programs in schools.

Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street incorporates some aspect of the arts, either sculpture or music performance, into its events and sponsors a Fourth Friday event centered on arts.

The city has Got Art, also downtown, a gallery to provide space for visual arts, run by a juried, nonprofit arts organization of about 80 artists.

'It’s a turnaround,' said Syrtiller Kabat chairperson of the arts council. 'We were a simple community that’s grown in sophistication.'

The arts council didn’t make all those things happen, but its job has been to help create a climate and awareness to help them flourish, Kabat said.

It began in 2001, a result of the Lee’s Summit 21st Century Strategic Plan. Its charge was to coordinate efforts between agencies to promote the arts and educate the public regarding arts opportunities.

Kabat, one of the first Arts Council members appointed, said that in early years the council hit a rough patch, where its energy was sometimes blunted by members representing different groups vying for city funding. She was one member who resigned, discouraged, but was reappointed to the council two years ago.

The City Council continued to refine the council’s make up, changing member terms, and the council continued its work, finishing a Cultural Arts Plan adopted in 2007. The following year it became an adjunct of the Lee’s Summit Park Board and picked up additional staff support from that department to begin implementing that plan.

Last year it completed a Cultural Facilities Master Plan and visited several cities, including Paducah, Ky.and Ashville N.C. and the Americans for the Arts National Conference to get ideas.

It started holding arts summits to connect local artists with businesses and leaders.