Comments on: City Council and the Values of Ann Arbor

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:42:39 +0000

And from Judy McGovern’s blog on Mlive yesterday about the ‘disaster’:

“In a March 16 exchange with Council Member Margie Teall, Council Member Leigh Greden dealt with a political hot potato while council guests and rank-and-file citizens stood at the mic and talked about community events and problems.

The subject is Ann Arbor’s public art program and the move to spend perhaps three-quarter of a million dollars for an installation at city hall. (Previous coverage.)

7:29 p.m. Greden to Teall – “Did Taylor call you? The art thing is a disaster. We need to find a way to clean it up.”

7:31 p.m. Teall to Greden – “…stop calling it a disaster.”

7:35 p.m. Greden to Teall – “Margie, I have *very* good instincts. We haven’t had a PR mess like this in quite some time. This has stretched into the masses. Taylor says Ned and Bernstein were complaining. The public sees it as a very simple analysis: Cops before art. Roads before art.”

That’s not the analysis Greden offered when he complained about News’ coverage of the issue. Instead, he argued that there was no controversy… and certainly no “disaster.”"

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By: UMGrad1234

UMGrad1234 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:40:09 +0000

The title of this posting takes on a WHOLE new meaning now that Councilmembers’ emails from this meeting have been released. City Council and the VALUES of Ann Arbor.

Dave Askins reports: “Later, during council deliberations on the resolution, Tony Derezinski thanked Michigan Peaceworks and Veterans for Peace from his perspective as “a veteran of an earlier unpopular war” and said that he was pleased to support it.”

From: Leigh Greden
Sent: March 02, 2009, 8:16 p.m.
To: Derezinski, Rapundalo, Higgins, Teall, Hohnke, Taylor

“The winner of the Golden Pandy Award, by unanimous vote of the committee, with nobody else even coming close to his performance: Tony Derezinski for pandering to veterans.”

Dave Askins reports: “Councilmember Carsten Hohnke said he’d seen a presentation when Dreiseitl was in Ann Arbor last year for the Huron River Watershed Council’s State of the Huron conference. He said it would bring storm water control out into the open and would thus be both educational as well as aesthetically pleasing art.”

From: Leigh Greden
Sent: March 02, 2009, 8:16 p.m.
To: Derezinski, Rapundalo, Higgins, Teall, Hohnke, Taylor
Subject: Oh wait….

Never to be outdone, Councilman Hohnke is demanding a re-count on the Pandy vote. His pandering to the artists is rivaling Derezinski’s pandering to the veterans.”

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By: Fred Zimmerman

Fred Zimmerman — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:59:52 +0000

I would have no objection to the decision or the process if the commitment was made at a more financially opportune time and was commensurate with the city’s resources.

As it is, the decision makers are putting themselves in the same tone-deaf stance — “the decision can’t be reviewed” – as the execs who received bonuses at AIG. Under the changed circumstances — I now favor asking questions about how to “claw back” the money, and, at the very least, I propose that we reduce the public arts subsidy going forward to 0.1 %.

The Ann Arbor District Library made a much wiser decision several months ago and shelved the idea of building a new downtown library until *after* we emerge from the worst recession in 50 years…

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By: LauraBBB

LauraBBB — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:10:01 +0000

That sounds like a legitimate question but you are a little late.

The answer is that a dedicated group of local residents (artists among them) who have been working on this commission for years made the decision to have the project tie in with the environmental values of the community and they chose the most renowned person in the world to do it.

You might have influenced this decision if you had been following it, the meetings are open to the public and there is time for public comment and conversation. Like a lot of things, the people who work on them make the decisions.

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By: Fred Zimmerman

Fred Zimmerman — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:33:35 +0000

Look, I enjoy public art and, in fact, the majority of my interests revolve around dramatic art, but the people who are defending this particular project are avoiding the central issue: is *$770,000* on outsourced public art a prudent investment, right now? Why not 7 $100,000 projects to 7 local artists for 7 locations? right: the money is already allocated. If it weren’t, no one would consider spending 770,000 on this right now.

Also, no one has answered the aesthetic question: why should we focus our public art on the storm water management theme? The only reasons I hear are 1) that’s where the $ come from and 2) A2 wants to be green. Those are reasonable arguments, but they’re not *artistic* arguments.

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By: LauraB

LauraB — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:41:11 +0000

And there are also many who believe every building should have some art especially one that will serve the area for 50 or more years. Because this feature will be plumbed into the building there will never be another opportunity.

It is incredibly important to not cheat those who will follow us buy cutting back on what is artful, beautiful and unique because of the crisis of the day. This economy will pass but art will last.

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By: Fred Zimmerman

Fred Zimmerman — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:00:59 +0000

Diane, most of what you say is true in the abstract, but in the here and now, $770,000 is a lot of money to send overseas to buy a public sculpture.

I think the city of Ann Arbor would suffer no harm whatsoever if the new building was constructed without a storm-water-themed piece of public art, and I suspect a lot of voters feel the same way.

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By: Diane

Diane — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:30:18 +0000

Fred-you could always say that we are in economic hardship, whether the timing is 10 years ago, 5 years ago, today or next year. As long as we have taxes, some will say we should never spend any money. They assume any expense by the government is unnecessary if they do not, cannot or will not see the value of an intangible investment

This building is being built now and the storm water management art needs to be created along with the construction. We cannot create it later and then install it. If the money has been budgeted why not just do it now.

A city is made up of more than just buildings and infrastructure; it is made up of culture, lifestyle, entertainment, reputation etc. These items are intangible items but still are important for the city to invest in. These sorts of investments have major impacts on whether businesses and people relocate to this area.

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By: Fred Zimmerman

Fred Zimmerman — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:11:38 +0000

Leslie — for all I know, it will be a beautiful piece of public art — the city of Ann Arbor has every right to choose “storm water management” as the theme of its public art — just as Wall Street chose the running bull and Washington, D.C. chose the national memorials. I personally would choose another theme, but ok.

What bothers me more is that a funding vehicle was created that allows city officials to make a very substantial and arguably quite extravagant outsourced purchase in a time of severe hardship, and that the structure of the funding vehicle insulates the expenditure from any effective present-day review in the light of current circumstances.

It’s the opposite of zero-based budgeting. Because the money is already tucked away, it has to be spent. *That* is messed up.

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By: Leslie Sobel

Leslie Sobel — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:54:39 +0000

It’s not a silly criterion – it’s a wildly creative and innovative approach to handling runoff and adding water features. The idea of taking environmental issues like handling storm water and making them integral to a site and beautiful is pretty new but it’s a great idea and is leading to a number of really exciting changes in landscape architecture, art and site design. This is a far more sophisticated approach than simply building a pond for runoff or a native garden like the one at the new Y – and both of those are fine but what Dreiseitl does goes much further and will be beautiful as well.

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