Defaced mural discovered in early March
The odyssey began around the beginning of March at one of my volunteer committee meetings. I don’t remember exactly who mentioned that they had heard that a store would be moving into the Heights’ bus depot space and that they had already removed pieces of the mural, thus defacing it.
The next day I went to have a look and saw what had been done. I was a bit shocked and surprised that this would happen without anyone knowing in advance what was going on.
I, however, did know that the Mass. Commission for the Blind and the T had been talking for some time about a project that would potentially result in a convenient store being in that space. I also knew the person at the MCB who was involved in that project and had even met the store’s proprietor about two years ago. I figured it would make sense to give him a call and simply find out what he knew about it.
When I called Fabian DePieza at the MCB, he answered, and we began to talk about this issue. He quickly got Kevin Forman, the store’s proprietor, on the phone so that we could talk about the project. Fabian told me that he had met late last summer with Carol Kowalski, the town planning director; Alan Manoian, then the economic-development coordinator; and Kevin at the town Planning Department to talk about the project. He indicated that, subsequently, the Planning Department had given them the green light to go ahead and renovate the space and that there were no outstanding issues or impediments to going forward at any time.
Planning director says artist notified
He then suggested getting Carol on the phone to join us. In that conversation Carol indicated that the mural had come to the Planning Department’s attention, which had resulted in her “notifying” Tova Speter, the artist directing the Dearborn project, and that she had attempted to find someone at the T who knew about the mural but had failed to find anyone. I suggested that we convene a meeting to discuss it and try to come up with a good solution to address the obvious problem. We talked about meeting in a week.
I also got a phone call from Howard Rossman, head of Dearborn Academy, whose students created the mural. He had been talking to Bob Sprague, YourArlington publisher, who had directed him to me, since he knew I was already concerned and trying to look into it. He was clearly upset as I was at how this could happen.
During the next few days, I suggested that we bring some of the groups in town who did know about the issue together to help work out details of a plan to “decommission,” commemorate, celebrate and otherwise try to reaffirm the town’s commitment to public art, etc. This would also be an opportunity to welcome the new store and publicize that this was a project that had some very good aspects because it was going to be run by folks with vision impairment.
I am legally blind, so matters related to this issue has always been something I supported. In an email Carol put in writing the part about notifying the artist and trying to contact the T.
When she saw that this might be a slightly larger meeting, she said she no longer thought this was something she needed to be part of and that the town had no responsibility for this artwork, etc. This came as quite a surprise and was disturbing because the town’s connection to this project was so clear.
In 2008, then-Town Manager Brian Sullivan had been the ribbon cutter at the installation ceremony, and the town took pride and credit for this project. Only five years have passed since the mural was installed. It seemed ridiculous that this iconic piece of public art that was created in collaboration with the students from Dearborn Academy and supported in part by funds from the Arlington Cultural Council wasn’t the responsibility of the town to value.
Since a citizen (me) had asked about this and there were obviously others in the community who cared about this deeply and were being affected by this, how could it not be the responsibility of the town in at least some sense?
Add to that the fact that the town had just activated and populated the commission, this seemed just irreconcilable. I smelled something rotten and rather than just giving up and going away, I decided to take the issue to Joe Curro and the Board of Selectmen. The one bright spot in this was that Joe was very concerned and immediately tried to help get this meeting to happen. We both discussed what needed to happen for this meeting to be successful and shared our goals between us and with the email list of people who were stakeholders, etc.
Commission involved, meeting limited
Unfortunately, Curro thought it might be a good thing to bring to the commission. When I heard that it had been suggested, I expressed reservations about the efficacy of the commission being the convener. It was and still is my belief that this can only be solved with the direct participation of the town’s Planning Department, where the responsibility should actually reside.
I reluctantly agreed to the commission’s role based on assurances from others on the commission that there was a commitment to doing it in a way that would allow time and space for the discussion and for getting all the important parties to sign on to the proposed solution.
When the announcement went out to the stakeholders, I got replies from several thanking me for getting this set up and for trying to come up with a creative and acceptable solution. I also got a reply from Carol that she wouldn’t be able to attend. Joe also indicated that he couldn’t attend. No alternative member of town government was offered in their places so that meant there would be no direct participation by one of the key partners, the town.
Late last week I got an email from Nora Mann, commission chair, declaring that the meeting as announced would take up too much of the commission’s precious time and that only a half hour would be devoted to this issue. Subsequently, the meeting was moved from Town Hall to the Senior Center, which reinforced the diminishing of this issue. I protested but was simply ignored. I resigned in protest to the whole experience.
Hopes for a positive outcome
It is still my hope that this problem can be resolved in a win-win manner, but I’m much more skeptical. Unfortunately, problems don’t tend to get better with age. The longer this issue has been being passed around like a hot potato, the worse things have gotten. What started as a mistake was compounded by denial and then compounded by bureaucratic impulses to make it go away. The opposite is now likely to ensue. This will now be played out in public and in the press.
I want to correct a few details of prior statements I made based on speculation about things that I only suspected and couldn’t verify. I have asserted that Manoian may have left under duress and not because of his mom, as the town had indicated. I have been able to verify through very reliable sources that that wasn’t the case.
At the same time I have been able to confirm that the outreach and approach that he was taking by starting the many conversations throughout the community, was not welcomed by the Planning Department from top to bottom.
There was a discomfort to put it politely. This confirms my concern about the alignment of the Planning Department and the efforts of the BOS, Town Meeting, the Commission, TED Committee, etc. The impression of alignment was the result of the enthusiasm that we all felt toward the welcome fresh approach that Alan had brought to the community. It was a breath of fresh air and we took it as a signal from the Town that it was actually prepared and enthusiastic about all of our wonderful energy and ideas.
Alan was surely sent out to be the messenger for the town and it must represent a deeper commitment by the Planning Department as a whole. WRONG! The fact that the conversations that he had begun abruptly stopped and were left hanging in the wind was actually the result of the Planning Department taking the opportunity of Alan leaving to move back to their comfort zone and to reestablish business as usual.
“Business as usual”
What seemed out of character for the Planning Department was in fact way out of their comfort zone. Alan had been operating “off the reservation.” Business as usual means that they were going back to serving developers and business owners primarily because that is the community that they are from and are comfortable with.
It is extremely uncomfortable to have lots of energy being created and expectations being raised that stuff might actually happen. They would have to do it and that wasn’t how they wanted it to be. They wanted to return to the safety and comfort of their bureaucratic understanding of their roles.
Business as usual is at the heart of this issue. There is a dysfunctional culture in town government that is clearly demonstrated here. For the town to become art friendly, it must change its culture. Everything that we do in the community to move forward relies on a real alignment between town government, the Cultural Commission, the TED Committee, and the stakeholders in the arts and culture community.
Without this alignment we will be going nowhere fast. It is a hard enough task to push this bolder up the hill. It is undoable if the Planning Department is pushing the bolder down the hill while we’re trying to push it up.
“How does this make us more or less art-friendly?”
There is one and only one fundamental question to ask at every stage and in every situation going forward. “How does this make us more or less art-friendly?”That needs to be the mantra everywhere in town government.
It is clear that what has happened here does not pass the test. Denying any obligation to deal with the destruction of an iconic artwork certainly doesn’t help us become more art friendly. Hiding out in the Planning Department offices rather than engaging in meaningful conversations with the community doesn’t help us become more art friendly. Being bureaucrats and refusing to think creatively doesn’t make us more art friendly.
I’ve sacrifice a great deal because I asked a few questions as a town citizen. I identified a problem, brought it to the attention of the town, it became my problem because the town wouldn’t own it, and then I became the problem because I wouldn’t just go away quietly.
This has taken a great deal of my time and energy for the past two months and resulted in my feeling the necessity to resign from commission which I worked very hard to get activated. I have had my optimism severely challenged and my eyes opened wide.
There are still many in the community who want to move forward, and I hope that they can and will. I will continue to do what I can as a resident and citizen of the town. Artists don’t need permission to do art and rarely wait for government or any other force to approve before they do what they do. Artists will still bring their vitality to the community. The question is what the town will do to meet and engage it. The Town has to decide whether it wants to walk the talk or settle for business as usual. What’s it going to be?
My 2 cents.
This viewpoint was poublished Saturday, May 4, 2013.
