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

Home

Research Question 5 Did the city manager play a role in facilitating cross-sector collaboration and public engagement in these efforts? The role of the city manager was found to be instrumental in developing and implementing city policy in regard to the public art process. The city manager, along with elected officials play a substantial role in building and maintaining relationships among the various art collaborators, including artists, art commissions, school districts, civic groups, and the like. The city manager holds a leadership position in the city, and serves as a liaison to sustain relationships across the community. In all cases, city managers were responsible for identifying funding and allocating resources that supported public art. Staff members including planning, parks and recreation, public works, and engineering were assigned work with public art agencies and to engage the public in order to secure a more successful outcome. Research Question 6 Did that make a difference in the outcomes and how the public at-lame received the projects? Participants in the study indicated that the process was the most important factor in regard to whether an art project was deemed successful or unsuccessful. Within each community, it was generally recognized that controversial projects were synonymous with unsuccessful or unpopular projects. However, it was noted that the conversation and lessons learned as a result of failed projects, led to future successes. One community brought in an outside arts facilitator to have community open houses after a "failed"project. Leading one respondent to note that the project may have been successful had those meetings been held prior to, rather than after, the controversial project was rejected by the community. 145