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Home My WebLink About100720 Agenda Packet Amendment Kris Morris History Briefing PTAC October 2020I am happy to almost meet all of you. For those of you who haven’t meet me, I was a Commissioner and Chair of Public Art on the Commission for about 10 years. I was asked to provide a bit of historical perspective and institutional memory about the work of the Arts Commission as well as an example or two about how it works in the policy realm in advice to Council. Although the Commission has undertaken a variety of tasks and projects over the years, the actual role is an advisory one to Council. You have been appointed because of your experience and expertise and the perspectives and knowledge that that experience has given you in the area of arts and culture. The Council has created a commission structure because they believe in the value of citizen engagement and civic participation and they believe that their work will be of a higher caliber if they utilize the skills and wisdom of experts in particular sectors and areas. That means that you have both an opportunity and obligation to give them the advice when asked. In pre‐pandemic times, the commissioners gathered around an actual table and had the benefit of discussing matters of import in‐person with the corollary of being able to read body language, pick up on nuance and subtlety and be able to ensure that all voices around that table matter, equally and without weight to one particular or stronger voice. I am sure that it was easier to share our opinions while also not holding our own opinions too dearly, because we were physically together. You have a different situation to manage through and that is the challenge of virtual meetings where, by structure, the person speaking is completely in focus. And, with so many of you new to the commission and to each other, you will necessarily need to be even more actively listening to your colleagues. I will say that the best work of the Commission when I had the opportunity to serve, always came when we actively listened and valued the diverse perspectives in the room. We undertook some challenging issues but we were always clear that after honest and respectful discussion, our job was to move to decision‐making. Just like Council, we didn’t always arrive at unanimity, nor was that expected. We were expected to deliberate, discuss and then have motions made, seconded, discussed and then voted on. That is also your deliverable to Council. As I mentioned, beyond policy issues, the Commission undertook different types of tasks as it evolved. As you will likely hear from Denise, the Commission initially developed and ran programs directly. Over time, some of those were spun off and the Commission then moved to funding programs and initiatives by local nonprofits. That evolution was appropriate and there is no doubt in the months ahead you will likely also look at new things to do and new ways of doing them. Let’s turn our focus to policy, in particular the public art policy. The Art in Public Places Policy and Procedure was developed several years before I joined the Commission but it was a masterwork of combined effort of the Commission, Council and City management. You have been asked to review a new two‐page policy document, can you imagine creating a 15‐page foundational public art policy in our very idiosyncratic community? That’s a wow. I would like to use a brief example to illustrate how the Commission, at the request of Council used that document as a framework for a public art process. The first time that the policy was used to add a piece to the public art collection, was when the downtown civic corridor capital infrastructure project had a percent for arts component, meaning that parts of the funding for it were eligible for the 1% for arts allocation. The Public Art Committee of the Commission had just developed a new public art plan that gave priority to that civic corridor and secondarily to uptown and also the vehicular entrance to the City. At the request of Council, the Commission initiated a public art process. That involved the Public Art Committee, comprised of Commissioners, which was tasked with enlisting an Artist Selection Panel with representatives from the neighborhood adjacent to the proposed art site, an at large member and a few city staff members from appropriate functional areas. The panel of nine then determine that it should be a regional call for artists. As artist submissions were received, they were posted online for the public to review. Once the call was complete the Panel meet, reviewed and discussed all of the submissions and narrowed the pool to a short‐list. As you can imagine, there were very diverse opinions about the proposals and I know personally that I very much benefitted from the perspectives and insights of my colleagues and I found my own opinions changed and informed by those conversations. The finalists were then asked to present their proposals to the public and the public was given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments. There was a public comment survey available that was also posted online. The Panel gave very serious consideration to those public comments and included them in our deliberations. The Panel then made a recommendation to the Commission about a finalist. Since the Commission had been updated monthly about the workings of the Panel, there was no real surprise and the Commission approved the recommendation of the Panel and in turn, made its recommendation to Council. Since the entire process was public and transparent, the recommendation was public ahead of the Council meeting and vote. At that time, a small but vocal few members of the public began to lobby me, the Commission and the Council suggesting that the most important of all of the selection criteria should have been that the artist be local. Even though there were local artists in the broader as well as in the finalist pool, the artist recommended for the contract was from Seattle. When the Council voted and approved the Commission’s recommendation, they did so knowing that the public art policy was the framework for all of the deliberations and that the processes and procedures outlined in that policy were done in full public view and were followed with discipline and integrity. That is exactly what policies should do—provide a coherent framework for decision‐making. That bring us to one of your tasks at hand, to give advice to the Council on the public art policy before you. I won’t opine on the policy itself, but I will say that I am convinced that the Council wants your advice and input. They want you to bring your best efforts and expertise to its review. I know that there are actual content proposals out there for new public art installations right now but that is probably not really the matter before you—your task is probably more to advise Council on a policy that will provide them and the City management with a tool, a guide to how they should manage public art going forward and which would enable them to respond according to that policy when content proposals are made. I really think that they want an in‐ depth review of the document and if that means that you edit it, change it, re‐priortize items within it, add a value statement, do actual wordsmithing, then that is what you should do and that is the type of thing that has been done historically by the Commission. Again, that is both your opportunity and your obligation as Commissioners. Finally and this might be to the chagrin of those who have asked me here today but you should be cognizant of how this new policy relates to the foundational public art policy. The original Art in Public Places Policy is a City Council policy. The policy before you now, is a policy that lives in City Code. That means that if there are conflicts or even just differences between the two documents, the City Code policy—pardon my phrase here—trumps the Council policy. Conflicts and differences are not only not necessarily bad but might actually be good and appropriate. They are a way to recognize that City and community needs change and evolve over time. I am only mentioning it because you should probably pay attention to both documents as you make your recommendation.