Mural, Mural on the Wall... A Saga in Two Parts: Part I

I know.  It's supposed to be "Mirror, mirror on the wall."  In the "Snow White" story, the witch was taken with herself, and she expected the mirror to tell her she was the "fairest of them all."  She set herself up, and she wasn't happy about the response she got.

Barbara Watts commandeered the project for the mural on the street-facing wall of the handball courts at the recreation center.  There had already been discussions about a mural for that wall, and those discussions have stretched back at least three years.  I know this, because Chuck Ross and I had been talking about it.  Suddenly, Barbara decided we should have a mural there, and she had ideas as to who should paint it.  She suggested people she knew from FIU.  I told her I already knew of some people who were interested, so Barbara, Ana Garcia, and I met together to figure out how to choose an artist.  We devised the idea of advertising for artists, through a Request for Proposal (RFP), but Barbara thought maybe her friends could just apply independently.  And soon.  I told her that if we were to go the RFP route, everyone who was interested had to have an equal chance.  So no, she could not simply slide her friends in ahead of everyone else.

It took an inordinate time to get the RFP composed and advertised, and it turned out the reason was that Barbara also had the idea of forming a committee of "experts" from among her outside (outside of BP) contacts, and she didn't want the RFP to go out until she had seated her group.  These were people Barbara imagined knew a lot about public art, or murals, and who would "judge" the proposals and recommend which proposals would be best.  Two of Barbara's "experts" were FIU colleagues, as was at least one of the proposed artists.  What these alleged "experts" have to do with BP has still not been explained.  Most of the parameters the "experts" were to consider related to the aesthetics of the images, which is to say the "experts" would tell us mainly which proposals looked best (to them).  These "experts," by the way, do not live in BP.  We do, and the mural will.

There was then to be input from the actual residents of BP.  If you thought this group was entirely forgotten, or bypassed, fear not.  We do apparently figure in, somewhere, somehow.  Maybe.  We are given an opportunity to vote on which mural proposals we like best.  More shortly about this plan.

The deadline for submissions was July 22.  No one was shown the proposed images until I complained and received them on August 15.  That's over three weeks after they were all received, and after no further input from artists was to come in.  If you want to know what the delay was all about, I have no idea.  And the proposed images were sent to me only, and only because I complained.  They were not posted on the village website.

In the meantime, while Barbara Watts was putting together her group of "experts" to judge the proposals no one was allowed to see, she was also trying to figure out how to get the mural paid for.  Her ideas were that $2500 should come out of village coffers, and/or that the Foundation should raise the money.  Another incoherent scheme of uncertain meaning involved having people "vote" for their favorite mural proposals, and pay for their votes.  It was never clear what would happen to the money that accompanied the unsuccessful votes, and the Commission did not consider itself bound by the voting anyway.  It is the Commission that will ultimately choose the "winning" mural.

One interesting development involved the judgements of the Watts committee and the public voting.  They appear to be precisely at odds with each other.  The "judges" liked two of the submissions best, and the voters relegated those two to the least desirable.  The judges also particularly recommended an artist who never made a submission at all.

There is a potential wild card in this "system."  (Commissioner) Barbara Watts had taken a very particular interest in this project, she seemed to tell me and Ana Garcia at the outset that she "knew someone" who would be a good muralist, and she has worked to shepherd the project to get it to go where she wants it, and deliver it to her friend.  So the obvious question is which of the proposed muralists does she know?  Which was she trying to maneuver into place to get the commission?  You can be sure I asked her, three times, and you can be sure she has not responded.

A dilemma precipitated itself by the time of the September Commission meeting.  The "experts" had opined, and the "public" had voted.  At the September meeting, Commissioners had all the information they were going to get.  And the decision was theirs alone.  But there were some uncomfortable discrepancies.  The "experts" recommended one thing, the "public" wanted something else, Watts had still not revealed how she is trying to get this to go, and the Commission (the Watts/Jacobs/Cooper majority) reaffirmed its commitment to paying for the mural with public Village money, despite the unanimous vigorously expressed wish of Village residents not to use public money.  So what to do?  Most groups of elected officials would find it hard to resist the swell of complaining constituents who did not want public money used.  If elected officials wanted to use public money anyway (we're talking about a unique group of three elected officials who have a consistently demonstrated disregard for the public and what the public think and want), they could not possibly resist giving the public what Commissioners demanded it pay for.  So the question is, what do elected officials do when they insist on using public money, despite the resistance of the public, but they also want to use it for something the public don't want?  This appears to be the problem with which Watts is struggling.  Her solution was to defer the matter for a month, presumably while she scrambles around colluding with her Commission majority partners and perhaps a special advisor.  They, for their part, have made clear that as long as her plan is provocative and foolish, and frustrates and upsets as many people as possible, they will fully support it, especially if it wastes Village money.