CITY OF POMONA
COUNCIL REPORT
September 19, 2022
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: James Makshanoff, City Manager
Submitted By: Anita D. Gutierrez, AICP, Development Services Director SUBJECT: APPEAL OF A CULTURAL ARTS COMMISSION DECISION DENYING THE AWARD OF PUBLIC ART FUND DOLLARS FOR PUBLIC ART (SCULPTURE) TO BE INSTALLED AT LINCOLN PARK.
RECOMMENDATION:
Planning Division staff recommends that the City Council uphold the decision of the Cultural Arts Commission to deny funding a proposed public art application with Public Art Fund dollars.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The City launched a Call for Visual Art process in March 2022. One applicant, Spectra Company, in association with Manuelita Brown, under the title “The Village/P Towne Productions,” submitted a request for Public Art Fund dollars for a statue to be installed at Lincoln Park. Staff evaluated the application, marked it “Acceptable,” and recommended partial funding to the Committee and Cultural Arts Commission. The Committee and Cultural Arts Commission discussed this application, along with others, at a Joint Special Meeting on August 8, 2022. After discussion, the Committee recommended denial of any Public Art Fund award to the application, and the Commission agreed with this recommendation and also denied the funding request. The applicant filed an appeal of the Cultural Arts Commission Decision. Staff is recommending that City Council uphold the decision of the Cultural Arts Commission. A denial does not negate the possibility of the statue being installed as public art in Lincoln Park, but instead denies the possibility of Public Art Fund dollars being expended to fund its installation and execution.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The proposed public art application, if funded, would expend dollars from the City’s Public Art Fund. The total possible fiscal impact to the Public Art Fund is $119,000 and funding is available in the FY 2022-23 Public Art Fund (#133).
PREVIOUS RELATED ACTION:
On August 8, 2022, at a Special Meeting, Joint Session of the Cultural Arts Commission and Citizen’s Advisory Committee, the Citizen’s Advisory Committee recommended denial of the funding request in its entirety for an application to install a proposed public art piece (statue) in Lincoln Park (4-2-0-1). The Cultural Arts Commission accepted this recommendation and denied the funding request in its entirety (4-2-0-1).
On June 22, 2022 a Minor Certificate of Appropriateness was approved by the Planning Division for the installation of public art in the form of an 80” bronze figurative statue to be located at the center of the existing rose garden at Lincoln Park.
On June 16, 2022, the Parks and Recreation Commission approved the location of the proposed public art (sculpture), within the rose garden portion of Lincoln Park.
DISCUSSION:
On March 15, 2022, the City released a Call for Visual Art (“Call”), approved by the Cultural Arts Commission. The Call sought applications from visual artists of all ages for temporary or permanent visual art projects and programs that are freely available to the public. The City accepted applications between March 15, 2022, and 5:00 PM on Thursday, April 21, 2022.
The City received 137 applications from 54 individual visual artists or non-profit organizations. Staff evaluated all proposals using an objective evaluation rubric approved by the Cultural Arts Commission. The rubric awarded a possible 50, 80, or 100 points for temporary, permanent, or program requests, respectively, across the criteria of Proposal, Visual Definition, Public Access, Public Engagement, Past Experience, Timeline, Budget, and an additional 10 points if the applicant was based in Pomona, as an incentive to encourage local artists.
The application (“Subject Application”) associated with this appeal is from Spectra Company, and visual artist Manuelita Brown, under the title of “The Village Pomona/P Towne Productions.” This application was categorized as a permanent application, and thus evaluated against other permanent applications. Of the 137 applications, 102 were categorized as permanent. Therefore, the Spectra application competed against 101 other proposals for Public Art Fund dollars.
In its evaluation, Staff categorized permanent applications as either “Outstanding” (scoring 64 points or higher out of 80), “Acceptable” (scoring 48 points or higher out of 80), “Technical Assistance” (scoring 40 points or higher out of 80), or “Ineligible,” which means the application was disqualified because it did not meet minimum application requirements.
The Subject Application was categorized as “Acceptable.” The Subject Application was deficient across numerous criteria. The proposal itself lacked clarity and referenced three separate entities involved with the project. The title referenced The Village/P Towne Productions, which is associated with a “Unity Day LA” event, and a @unitdayla Instagram handle was provided; however, the Past Experience cited Spectra Company as the lead applicant; and lastly, the executing artist was Manuelita Brown. As the Call for Visual Art is centered on funding an actual visual artist or visual arts non-profit organization or entity as described in the initial “Who Can Apply” section of the application, Staff contacted Manuelita Brown to better understand her role. Staff confirmed that she indeed is the lead artist for the proposed statue, to be installed at Lincoln Park, and that Spectra Company would be involved in the installation of the piece. The Unity Day LA event was scheduled to take place in July 2022 to “unveil” the piece that Manuelita already completed. This meant that public engagement around the statue in the form of public hearings before the Commission would not function as actual engagement on how the statue was to be created, or where it should be located, but instead as an already completed product. This negatively impacted the Engagement criteria. Furthermore, when asked about budget, Manuelita did state that Spectra was already funding her work and that she expected to be fully paid before the application review was completed. This negatively impacted the Budget criteria in Staff’s scoring, as a significant portion of the budget had already been funded, diminishing the need for the applicant to seek full Public Art Fund dollars to execute the project. The application nonetheless did provide sufficient background on Manuelita through a linked website, and cited the cultural context of the statute content itself. For all these reasons, Staff evaluated the Subject Application as “Acceptable,” but recommended to the Committee and Commission that only the unfunded portions of the budget be considered, which represented installation costs, as the artist had already been paid by Spectra.
As a separate set of parallel processes, Staff brought the Subject Application forward to the Parks and Recreation Commission on June 16, 2022, for approval of the location only. The Parks and Recreation Commission approved of the location at the center of the rose garden in Lincoln Park. On June 22, 2022, Planning Division approved a Minor Certificate of Appropriateness for the installation of the public art within the rose garden. These separate actions were necessary as the proposed location was not pre-approved by the Parks and Recreation Commission, and as Lincoln Park is located within the Lincoln Park Historic District, and therefore subject to the Historic Preservation zoning rules outlined in Section .5809-13—Historic Preservation. Neither decision was appealed.
On August 8, 2022, the Citizens Advisory Committee and Cultural Arts Commission convened a Special Joint Meeting to begin review of the Call for Visual Art applications and Staff recommendations. For the Subject Application, the Committee and Commission discussed the budget and raised concerns about Staff’s recommendation on funding the unfunded installation portion of the budget, as these costs appeared too high and were not sufficiently backed up by cost estimates. They also raised concerns about not being able to comment on the statue, including its style and format, as it had already been created, thus negating the ability for the Committee to offer any guidance or request any modifications before making a recommendation to the Commission. A concern was raised about process as well, in that the Call for Visual Art was intended for ideas and unfunded, to-be commissioned art, not completed pieces. Another concern was raised about Spectra as an applicant indicating at the meeting during public comment that P-Towne Productions is a non-profit, suggesting that it was P-Towne and not Spectra that was the lead applicant, although no non-profit identifying information was provided or written into the application for P-Towne. Some Committee members and Commissioners supported partial funding as recommended by Staff, and some supported full funding. The Committee recommended denial of the application for any funding. Several members of the public spoke in favor of the request. The Cultural Arts Commission accepted Committee recommendation and denied funding in its entirety with 4-2 vote with one Commissioner being absent.
Based on the discussion that took place at the Joint Special Meeting, leading to a denial of Public Art Fund dollars for the Subject Application by the Cultural Arts Commission, Staff recommends that the City Council uphold this decision.
Prepared by:
Ata Khan
Planning Manager
ATTACHMENT(S):
Attachment No. 1 – Applicant Appeal Letter
Attachment No. 2 - Resolution No. 2022-174 Upholding CAC Decision Attachment No. 3—Staff Report for August 8, 2022 Special Joint Meeting Appeal of Cultural Arts Commission Decision on Public Art Fund Request for Public Art at Lincoln Park