Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 01/09/2025

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young couple in town, when they have out-of-town visitors, makes a point of taking them on a tour of the local art to tell the story about their community. She mentioned that it provides creative exposure, drives tourism, and tells the city's history. Primarily, public art is more for residents than visitors. People enjoying viewing the public art exhibits. During the 2020 pandemic, art provided a way for people to get outside and do an activity that was affordable and allowed them to keep distanced from other people. She believes that most residents like public art, but don't like the city paying for it. While there seems to be a good awareness of public art, she is not sure residents understand how it comes about. She thought that perhaps the art commission could do a better job of communication about art projects and how little money the city actually spends on public art. The community sees value in the art tourism that brings people and dollars to the city. She believes that public art in the community also provides a good resource for educational institutions and they don't have to travel to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to see good art. She believes that the viewing public and the individual artists are the primary beneficiaries of the public art program in the community. In addition, she noted that several non-profit civic groups have used public art to tell their story and promote their brand. For example, the local music festival uses one of the public art sculptures of a musician in their marketing of their events. She noted that some geographic areas do not have public art and the north side of down is underserved, while art is concentrated in the downtown area. The costs she sees to public art include the cost of maintaining the spaces by the city's parks and public works department. In addition, the city has the cost of maintaining historic architecturally significant buildings. She wished that the commission had more dollars for marketing so that they could do a better job of telling the story of public art in the community. 104