January 21, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Editorial: Will public art be sacrificed?

Public art is not unlike the proverbial starving artist when it comes to being adequately funded -- going hungry makes one lean indeed.

The difficulty is that not everyone appreciates the value of art in public places. Some take a dislike to one work and translate that to a dislike of public funding.

Others feel such works are best funded by private donations from individuals or businesses who want their part of town beautified, or who have a higher appreciation of the value of beauty displayed for all to see.

Centuries past, much public art was funded by wealthy patrons -- individuals, kings or popes -- who commissioned works for the glory of their egos, families or places in history. Magnificent works, such as the Sistine Chapel, now belong to humanity and the ages through this mechanism.

Palo Alto's Public Art Commission now seeks to win City Council backing for a "Percent for Art" program in which developers would be required to pay 1 percent of the project cost for public art -- either incorporated in the project or turned over to the city for other projects. The commission is working on details of the proposal, which it hopes to submit for council approval by April.

There is no question that the city's public-art program is drastically underfunded. The Palo Alto program's $55,000 per year budget lags behind similar budgets in neighboring communities -- another example of Palo Alto's not-so-benign neglect of its infrastructure, if public art can be considered as such. As is pointed out on page 3 of today's paper, that's less than $1 per year per resident.

Opposition to the "Percent for Art" concept from developers is a certainty, and developer Chop Keenan has already weighed in: "It's a horrible idea."

Granted, businesses are already being eyed for funds to help shoulder the budget load to a greater extent -- through a business-license tax, a fee to offset impacts of new development on traffic and, in Downtown Palo Alto, a fee to cover costs of a Business Improvement District, or BID.

The city already has heard much about the need to be more business friendly to stimulate the local economy, and this argument will be made vigorously in this impending debate.

Palo Alto's history of public art has been spotty -- but the city has more public art around than perhaps it deserves from the limited budget dollars assigned to it. Some art has been funded by local businesses already.

Among the more noticeable are the California Avenue Area Development Association's commissioned "Sun Flowers" dynamic sculpture and its more controversial sculpture of a large running doll with a human face in its stomach.

There are some lovely murals and mosaics that enhance urban vistas and add visual interest to the community.

Such art in our view has indeed enriched the community.

But there are several issues that raise concerns about the mandated 1 percent proposal.

Our biggest objection is that assigning a fixed amount of funding to any purpose is, simply, a bad way to do business. There are any number of causes that could argue for a fixed percentage allocation of funding: police and fire protection, prevention of child or elder abuse, child care, libraries, street maintenance or tree care.

Rather, one should define what a reasonable range of funding for a given program might be -- something between bare-bones and conspicuous consumption -- and then seek funding appropriate to the program.

While we agree that public art is a necessary component of living in a gracious and civilized community, and that Palo Alto's present level of funding is something of a disgrace and embarrassment, fixed-percentage funding should be rejected.

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