Menlo Park: Public art law gets painted over Menlo Park: Public art law gets painted over (November 03, 2004)

** Menlo council votes to repeal two-year-old ordinance.

By Rebecca Wallace
Almanac Staff Writer

As expected, Menlo Park's public art law has been painted over.

Despite an impassioned defense of the law by the normally soft-spoken Councilman Chuck Kinney, the Menlo Park City Council voted 3-2 on October 26 to repeal it. As they have for months, council members Mickie Winkler and Lee Duboc said the ordinance unfairly burdens businesses.

Mr. Kinney, though, wasn't going down without a fight. Speaking firmly and at length, he decried the council's August 31 vote to direct city staff to draft a repeal ordinance as a "travesty."

"Is it any wonder that the entire Arts Commission resigned en masse?" he asked.

Ms. Duboc said she hoped a new Arts Commission would come up with a better way of funding public art.

Mr. Kinney also said that it's in the best interest of businesses to have public art on their property, as it can attract customers and show an interest in bettering the community.

"Why should art be limited only to museums or public places?" he said.

The two-year-old law requires owners of newly built commercial, municipal and industrial buildings with construction costs of $250,000 or more -- and some remodels -- to pay 1 percent of the costs to put a work of art on their site where it can be seen by the public.

The council must vote again at a later meeting to officially repeal the law, but such a vote is typically only a formality.

Some of the loudest opposition to the law has come from Menlo Chevron owner John Conway and Milton Borg, who owns the 7-Eleven building on Alma Street. The two were the first to have their rebuilding projects fall under the ordinance, and the council voted to relieve them and other business people who had been subject to the law from some of its requirements.

While Mr. Borg has already installed a decorative metal bench in front of the 7-Eleven, he will no longer have to keep it there. That means the city will return the $4,360 Mr. Borg paid to guarantee the bench's maintenance, the council decided.

Mr. Borg's roof and facade construction project cost around $520,000; the remainder of his art fee went to administrative costs and will not be returned.

As for Mr. Conway, who had planned to put in a mural but was unhappy about it, the council gave him the choice of installing the art or allowing the city to keep the $3,593 art fee he paid (which does not include administrative costs).

Mr. Conway, who had asked months ago to be able to pay an in-lieu fee instead of putting in art, told the council, "I'm all for that," referring to letting the city keep the fee. That money would go toward installing art elsewhere in the city, probably on municipal land.

Maintenance will also no longer be required for the other two works of art already put in under the law -- murals at Mike's Cafe on Middlefield Road and at Longs Pharmacy on Sharon Park Drive.

The other four projects falling under the law were early in the process and will have art fees and the bulk of their administrative fees returned, the council decided.

Hard-edged debate

Speaking against the law on October 26, Councilwoman Mickie Winkler, like Mr. Kinney, didn't mince words. She was critical of all three works of art installed under the law.

She called the 7-Eleven bench "unfortunate" and said the Longs mural is nice, but hidden under the building's eaves. The mural at Mike's Cafe, she said, has a big beige paint splotch next to it.

"I think this art ordinance has been tried, it's been given a chance, (and) it's been disappointing on many levels," she said.

Nicholas Jellins voted against repealing the law and Paul Collacchi voted in favor of doing so. Mr. Jellins said the law should be refined and not dumped, while Mr. Collacchi said that art is an inappropriate mitigation for construction.

During public comment, former arts commissioner Margaret Fruth strongly defended the law, criticizing the council for throwing out a program that commissioners had worked for years to create.

"You think you are addressing a tax on businesses, but you are also telling all commissioners on all commissions, not just on art, that your value of their hard work is exactly what you pay them: namely, nothing," she said.

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