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Minutes 12-05-05 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE ARTS COMMISSION BOARD HELD AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM, 129 EAST OCEAN AVENUE, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA, ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2005 AT 6:30 P.M. Present: Debby Coles-Dobay, Chairperson Richard W. Beau Lieu, Vice Chair Cheryl Arflin Angela Budano Barbara Lentz Anita Remers Suzette Urs Arleen Dennison, Board Liaison Absent: Deborah Nesbit, Alternate I. Call to Order I Announcements Chair Coles-Dobay announced the Art in Public Places Ordinance had been passed and was now in effect. The speed with which the Board managed to put this Ordinance in place was notable and the Board members were justifiably proud of their accomplishment. Hard copies of the Ordinance will be distributed at the next meeting. It was hoped that Mr. James Barretta of the Community Redevelopment Agency would be in attendance to discuss ways in which the Arts Commission could interact with the various projects underway. Chair Coles-Dobay believed that Mr. Barretta was an architect who understands art and architecture. The Board looked forward to having his participation as liaison. II. Subcommittee Reports 1) Raiders of the Lost AItRecap - Suzette Urs Ms. Urs believed the event was a success although it demonstrated that public awareness and involvement in public art was in its infancy in Boynton Beach at present. Cameras were provided for 99 participants and 9 eventually participated, some of who were related to or invited to participate by Board members. One City employee submitted pictures. Still, the pictures they provided were interesting and pointed out the large number of parks and other public places in the City that were completely devoid of art. Several participants expressed interest in seeing art in residential areas. Ms. Urs believed the Arts Commission's #1 priority was to involve the community in art and make them aware of the Arts Commission. In spite of considerable advertising, the Art Director of the Woman's Club, Dusty Luango, commented they had been completely unaware of the event. Ms. Urs thanked Ms. Dennison for her wonderful behind-the-scenes work that helped make this event happen. The press covered the event and an article appeared in the Neighborhood Post. Ms. Dennison advised the event would also be publicized in the City's newsletter, which should help to spread the word also. Meeting Minutes Arts Commission Boynton Beach, Florida December 5, 2005 Ms. Arflin felt that some art focus groups should be initiated so the public could discover what was going on and how they could become involved in it. Ms. Lentz mentioned the CRA's jazz festival had been phenomenal, and she envisioned joining with them to have music and art. Ms. Urs spoke of the $3K neighborhood grant program and how the Board could use that money to commission an artist to create some kind of indestructible art to be used in neighborhood areas, with neighborhood involvement and buy-in. 2) Artist's Database The Arts Commission's Web site has been purchased and reserved and the next step would be to design the site. The Web site was necessary so the Board could do Calls to Artists, establish a database with e-mail contacts, and link to other organizations. Ms. Lentz is working on this at present. The Arts Commission logo could comprise the first page. It was suggested that Ms. Lentz contact the ITS individual working with the CRA, who might be willing to design a couple of simple pages that would get the ball rolling for the Web site. 3) Review of FAU's Picturing Florida Program Chair Coles-Dobay mentioned the Board had facilitated this project. Artist Ellen Harvey had gone to the Senior Center and presented her work. She wanted to reach out to seniors in all of South Florida to determine their experiences in Florida. Chair Coles-Dobay distributed a poster for seniors asking for images of Palm Beach: "Beautiful" and "Ugly." The deadline was January 5, 2006. Ms. Harvey would then start to create the work that will be exhibited in FAU's Schmidt Center Gallery from February 9 through April 8, 2006. The Recreation & Parks Department has arranged for a bus to transport the seniors to FAU to watch the artist's work in progress. When the exhibit is complete, the seniors will be taken to FAU to view the finished product. 4. Sister City Exhibits - Richard Beau Lieu Vice Chair Beau Lieu met with the Sister City organization and they selected twenty pieces that would be appropriate to hang in area businesses. The pieces will have hangers applied, be shrink wrapped, and rematted. Vice Chair Beau Lieu will contact the businesses on the list previously agreed to and try to encourage them to host the exhibit for at least sixty days. The question of insurance was raised, and Ms. Dennison thought it might be necessary to take out a rider policy on the City's existing policy since the City did not own the artwork. The cost of the rider was unknown. The comment was made that artists were sometimes told their artwork would be displayed at the artist's risk. It was felt a contract would be necessary. Ms. Arflin believed the Board needed to develop a standard contract it could use with all artists. 5) Carolyn Sims Memorial The Carolyn Sims Memorial will be at Wilson Park. The County denied the City's request for a grant for the Memorial, but the Arts Commission still has an artist, Frank Varga, who could be 2 Meeting Minutes Arts Commission Boynton Beach, Florida December 5, 2005 approached to see if he had any ideas for a more modest scope of work. The requested grant was for $30K and the match from the City was to have been $30K. Mr. Majors had spoken to Ms. Dennison about possible private donations. The community could also be encouraged to begin fund raising for the Memorial. Ms. Dennison mentioned the community input was supposed to be $17K with $13K in-kind to run a workshop, provide transportation, engage the services of a public art administrator, brochures and so forth. Ms. Jody Rivers, Parks Superintendent, stated the City could work with the Arts Commission to come up with a plan to make this happen. Ms. Arflin will work with Mr. Majors on this item and report back to the Board. Chair Coles-Dobay commented the art would not come in until the building was completed and that was not scheduled until June of 2007. III. Guest Speaker Chair Coles-Dobay introduced Jody Rivers, Parks Superintendent, who gave an interesting and informative presentation to the Board on the City's current parks and plans for parks for the next 5-10 years. The parks in the Capital Improvement Plan for 2005-06 are Southeast Neighborhood Park, Jaycee Park, Intracoastal Park Clubhouse, and Nautica Pond Park. The Wilson Park and Congress Avenue Community Park were slated for the 2006/07 Capital Improvement Budget except the Wilson Park and Intracoastal Clubhouse were on hold because the Library Expansion and the Wilson Park had gone over budget. Bicentennial Park and Sara Sims Park were slated for the 2007/08 Capital Improvement Budget. Ms. Rivers declared the Recreation & Parks Department hoped to begin theming some of the parks since they were rather generic at present. Ms. Rivers commented most of the City's parks had suffered hurricane damage and were being restored. It was thought that Jaycee Park would be an excellent park to house marine-related art, since it is on the Intracoastal Waterway. This year's budget includes $515K to begin master planning and marketing planning for Congress Avenue Community Park, where the City plans to build a unique, completely barrier- free, "boundless" park. It will be built on 13.5 acres and is meant to engage people of all abilities and disabilities. Plans include a therapeutic clubhouse, a sensory garden, and possibly a garden from Boynton Beach's Sister City in Qufu, China. Much of the park is in wetlands and this will be incorporated with interpretive trails, walking trails, and picnic areas. This is Commissioner Ensler's Legacy project. In 2006, the Capital Improvement has set aside $1M for seed money to begin the fund-raising campaign for this project. The Governor has an initiative called Florida Families First and he adopted the "boundless playground" program and called for 60 of these parks in the State in 2006. At the moment, there are only two parks in the State. The City asked the Legislature for money last year, but it was denied. They planned to do some serious lobbying and felt optimistic they would get the money this year. Some foundations have also expressed interest. The Board felt art in this project could extend to such functional things as trellises and benches. Ms. Rivers noted there was an artist on the design team and they would be involving the Arts Commission at some point. 3 Meeting Minutes Arts Commission Boynton Beach, Florida December 5, 2005 Bicentennial Park, which is a small 1f4 acre park just north of Boynton Beach Boulevard off Federal Highway, is likely to become more of a focal point when the expected 3-5K people are added to the City in the coming years. This park is one where art could play an important role, since there is very little room for landscaping. They were expecting the developers to fund improvements at this park. Ms. Rivers shared a conceptual design for Veterans Park on Ocean Avenue and S.E. 4th Street. This is the proposed site for the Veterans Memorial. Ms. Rivers commented they had been given the design from a landscape architect. While everyone liked it, Ms. Rivers said she would prefer to have more community input. When the project gets underway, the City planned to hire a landscape architect and enter into dialogue with the Arts Commission for help on the design. Chair Coles-Dobay said the Arts Commission had a Call to Artists set up with some criteria, but they had put it on hold until the location was finally determined. The Board will come up with new criteria including the budget, location, and so forth, and do another Call to Artists. Once all the applications are in, a juried panel will be set up of project stakeholders. The juried panel would then select a piece they felt would be most appropriate for the project. Ms. Rivers was glad a dialogue had begun between the City, the Arts Commission and the CRA and felt that a lot of coordination and cooperation could take place between the groups. She looked forward to working with the Arts Commission. The Board thanked Ms. Rivers for her very informative presentation, a copy of which is available in the City Clerk's office as part of the permanent record. IV. Program Planning 1) Art in Public Places Location Placement - Review CRA Area Chair Coles-Dobay brought in rough sketches of various projects in the CRA area such as The Arches, the Promenade, and so on. The Board discussed these areas and believed the Arts Commission could still influence projects for the better if it could meet with developers. It could still give developers ideas to improve their projects with art that would not interfere with budgets or other considerations. Chair Coles-Dobay had met with Vivian Brooks, CRA Planning Director, who was very amenable to working with the Arts Commission and looked forward to their involvement in CRA projects. Ms. Brooks had given Chair Coles-Dobay a list of names of developers with their telephone numbers. Chair Coles-Dobay was happy to make the contacts, but asked if she could take another Board member along at times. In light of the Sunshine Laws in Florida, Ms. Dennison commented she could do so, but the other person would have to be on staff and not another Board member. If two or more Board members meet with someone, the meeting would have to be noticed as a public meeting. Some of the projects for which the contacts were in hand were The Promenade, The Arches, the Gulfstream Project, and East Boynton Village. There was some feeling the Board should forge ahead to meet with the developers now, even though the formal marketing brochure was not complete, so the Arts Commission could still influence various projects for the better. There were a number of large projects poised to begin and time was of the essence. 4 Meeting Minutes Arts Commission Boynton Beach, Florida December 5, 2005 After discussion, it was decided the Arts Commission should come up with answers to the question: Why do we need art? Pictures of possible art pieces would also be helpful to have. After discussion, a subcommittee was formed to come up with promotional and marketing literature to be used when speaking with the developers and to have a training session at an upcoming meeting. Barbara Lentz and Cheryl Arflin were two members who agreed to work on this project in a sub-committee. At about 8:00 p.m., the Board took a break to view former Board member Raymond Marcinkoski's magical lighted sleigh and reindeer as they passed by the Museum where the meeting was held, a spectacle enjoyed by all. 2) Linda Stabile's Art Deco House Proposal Chair Coles-Dobay discussed a letter she had received from Ms. Linda Stabile asking for the Board's support for a development she wanted to undertake on Old Dixie Highway. She was interested in promoting a development that would be geared towards historical, unique businesses, and small independent restaurants, with multi-use around it. She was not in favor of having the entire area become a site for the town homes that were proliferating throughout Boynton Beach. The tone of the letter was to be encouraging without coming out with unequivocal support for the proposed project. After a lengthy discussion, it was decided Chair Coles-Dobay would draft a letter of response to Ms. Stabile and forward it to the Board members for review and approval. 3) Public Art Administrator Position Update Ms. Dennison noted the position had been approved in the October 1, 2005 budget; however, it was approved for a particular salary. At the same time, the City undertook a pay and class study to compare its salaries with those of surrounding municipalities. The study has been completed and a recommendation was made in it to increase the salary for this position. The findings of the study are slated to go before the City Commission at the second meeting in January. As soon as the salary is approved, Ms. Dennison will approach the City Manager for permission to post the position. After applications are received, interviews have been held, and an offer made, a background check would be required. The process usually takes a long time. Since the Arts Commission is in such great need of having the position filled, it was hoped the process could be expedited. V. Other Vice Chair Beau Lieu suggested the Board enlist the cooperation of the Arts Center on future projects, so the parents of the students could be brought on board. Ms. Remers shared pictures of a pocket park in New York City. She remarked there was a lovely bronze plaque in the park saying, "The art here is on loan from (artist's name) and the plaque is signed "by New York Public Art Community." 5 Meeting Minutes Arts Commission Boynton Beach, Florida December 5, 2005 VI. Adjournment Since there was no further business before the Board, the meeting was duly adjourned at 8:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, ~<<1A-~J Susan Collins Recording Secretary (120605) 6