City covertly removes controversial park bench

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Mon Nov-07-11 09:47 AM
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City covertly removes controversial park bench

City covertly removes controversial park bench

PRESCOTT - Prescott College student Kristin Anthony knew things were not going well in her negotiations with the City of Prescott over the bench she created in Granite Creek Park.

Still, she said she never expected the scene she found when she arrived at the downtown-area park on Tuesday morning.

"I was the first one here, and I saw that the bench was gone," Anthony said, standing near the bare area where the bench once stood. "I thought I was dreaming."

The community's park bench saga ended abruptly sometime Monday night/Tuesday morning, when City of Prescott crews removed the bench that had been the source of controversy in the community for the better part of the past month

http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1086&articleID=99363

Letter: City wrong to destroy participatory bench project

EDITOR:

As president of Prescott College, I am stunned by actions of the City in removing Kristin Anthony's bench in the middle of the night.

Kristin designed the bench with all good intentions as a community gathering place, and she asked community members to participate in its creation. She and others who supported the project agreed to alter the design to meet the City's questions about safety, although the original dissatisfaction apparently was about the symbols on many of the bench's tiles. I followed the dialogue between the City and Kristin, and was hopeful that both "sides" were learning from the negotiations and that a win/win situation would result.

Instead, the City acted foolishly in destroying the bench, doing so without notice and under cover of darkness. What does this action teach students? How can we be proud to live in and partner with a City such as this?

Kristin R. Woolever, Ph.D.

President, Prescott College

http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubsectionID=73&ArticleID=99814

Public officials would tell a curious public only that the incomplete brief statement sent Tuesday would be their final word on the subject. The city has already told its residents what kind of art can and can't be displayed, and now our public officials are telling residents what they should and should not have answers to.

Accountability and transparency are long gone from the City of Prescott. Enough so that the bizarre chain of events led one city councilperson, Lora Lopas, to abruptly resign her seat. "I firmly believe in this, and for a city to go in the middle of the night (last night) and remove a piece of public art when I was last informed there was a solution to replace certain tiles and keep the bench, that just frankly disgusts me," Lopas wrote in her letter of resignation.

We'll never know exactly what original proposals and/or changes the artist, Kristin Anthony, submitted for approval to the city, since officials have decided what they've said is enough.

If Anthony did veer from her approved submission without proper notice, that serves neither support for public art nor the artist herself. And if the city had a deficient policy in place for public art, then that, too, is cause enough for the mess in which the city now finds itself.

http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&subsectionID=1118&articleID=99383