Okay, Okay! People tell me that I am naive. Guilty as charged.
Yesterday I wrote in Baseball art that it looked like the city at one time thought about spending $850,000 for art at the new ball park, with most of the money going to out of town artists. I saw some documents that made me hope that the amount had been cut down to $150,000 and would go to a local artist.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride …
Next Tuesday’s (January 15, 2013) city council agenda has item 11B on it that would approve the 2013 Public Art Plan for the City of El Paso.
The plan includes $850,000 for art at the soon to be built baseball park and $478,000 for art at the new city headquarters (why can’t we move art from the soon to be demolished city hall?). Dozens of other projects are listed in the plan.
Art is something that I know nothing about. I suppose we need it. Please don’t make me pick it.
My objections here are that we evidently are using certificates of obligations (borrowing) to fund this. If we borrow I think it should be for necessities. We should pay for niceties with money that we actually have.
Secondly (but certainly no less important) if we are still giving preference to out of town artists I think that we are doing the wrong thing. It appears from reading the document that the artists have already been chosen, and some are indeed from out of town.
Take a look at the document. It shows what they plan to spend and where the art will go. It even has conceptual renditions of what some of it may look like.
Much of the plan addresses dressing up the Bataan Railway right next to the proposed ball park. What a coincidence. Should we consider this part of the cost of the ball park?
We deserve better
elpasospeak 
I looked at the long list of public arts projects in the document you posted and the sizable amounts of money being spent. Let’s get down to basics. If city management wishes to make El Paso more attractive to visitors and newcomers, it should take some of the money that it wants to spend on art and put it into a campaign to Clean Up El Paso and reduce litter. A few more city street and sanitation workers might help as well. Our streets, parks, parking lots and outdoor spaces continue to be littered with plastic bags, trash, dirty diapers, fast food wrappers, beer bottles and cans, etc., all of which reinforce El Paso’s image as a dusty, dirty border town. Yes, the wind here is a %#@!, but the wind can’t blow something unless it’s already been thrown on the ground.
Art is wonderful, but a few pieces of art will not fix the underlying problem. Building and property owners need to take some responsibility as well. We’re proud of our weather here in the sun city, but when you look down rather than up, what you typically see isn’t very appealing, especially to people coming from cleaner communities.
You want to change the look of our city? Perfect. Let’s work on changing behavior and instilling some personal responsibility. Some will say that art will instill pride, but let’s say that a person lives in a small home that is run-down. The yard is overgrown and there are vehicles and trash in the yard. You can GIVE that person a larger, more modern home, but odds are they will soon treat the new home the same way and the new home will quickly become run down.
You want more art? Great. No problem. Do it with corporate sponsorships, not borrowed money and tax dollars.
Yes, we deserve better, and those who live here must be willing to do better and be better neighbors.
LikeLike
You know, there’s a bigger issue here than just spending money on art.
More art (or less art, for that matter), is not the issue.
The issue is that our city leaders do not support local talent. Whether that talent be artists, or businesses.
Why does so much of what we spend go to concerns outside of the city? What exactly is our city government trying to do? Impress? Convince outsiders that we are worth the effort? That we can run with the big dogs?
Shouldn’t we be investing in ourselves?
Fact is, despite the population size, El Paso will always be a small town. Because nothing is done to make it stronger. We can build all the sports venues, all the museums, all the new city halls we want. Until our leaders figure out that the base to support all this expansion is NOT as strong as it needs to be, we’ll continue to nip at the heels of the big guys.
But we won’t become one of them.
LikeLike