public participation in public art selection?: kinda cumbersome, says Chicago

On June 13, an issue will come up for a vote at the Chicago City Council meeting that will affect public participation in meetings about public art.

In mid-May at the request of the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs (Lois Weisberg), Mayor Daley proposed an ordinance to revamp the Public Art Program. Unfortunately, this proposed ordinance is bad government: bad for Chicagoans and particularly bad for the Chicago art community. In essence it wipes out public participation in the selection of public art. This is outrageous, and will not be tolerated by the local art community.

Mayor Daley and the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) have proposed an ordinance to modify the Public Art Program. Their stated reason makes no sense: that the open meetings were cumbersome and unnecessary. That the previous ordinance existed for 25 years and that the City has an exemplary art collection in part because of these open meetings they deemed irrelevant.

We have proposed an alternative ordinance that will not be considered unless you act. We are the following groups: Punk Planet, Bad at Sports, the Chicago Artists Coalition, Lumpen, Sharkforum, ArtLetter, and others to be named soon.

We're asking Chicagoans to write to their Alderpeople in support of the Public Art Ordinance Amendments as we've rewritten them here: http://www.artletter.com/Public_Art_Ordinance_Amendments_as_of_06.03.07_...

This language, in comparison to the original ordinance and that proposed by the DCA, can be found here: http://www.artletter.com/html/ordinances.html

Chicago has a great tradition of public art. This is a process that should be opened to wider public participation, not shut down to members of the public.

(Find your alderman here: http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalProgramAction.do?prog...)