My Impressions of the Giddens Park Greenprinting Meeting

The following is my impression of the Greenprinting meeting. I’m sure the Chair of the committee, or whoever was taking better notes will follow with a more accurate/detailed official summary of the meeting.

According to Jennifer Sterling of the Mayor’s Beautification Program the reason for the withdrawal of the artists had to do with costs of the project increasing She reiterated that the the recent discussion of the artwork by the neighborhood was not the reason for the artist’s withdrawal. It was strictly budgetary.

Apparently the costs for the fountain more or less doubled. I believe based on some experiences with the Kate Jackson Park and for other reasons the specifications for the fountain had to be beefed up, specifically in relation to the water circulating system. For example: the water-recalculating tank needed to be bigger.

Originally we had $75, 000 for the fountain. Then Art in Public Places provided an additional $25,000 for Public Art. In order to maximize what we could get for the money, it was decided to put those two batches of money together thus creating a pool of $100,000 to use towards building an integrated fountain/art project.

However just build the fountain it went from about $38,000 to roughly around $75,000. This left only $25,000 for the art

I believe the artists then tried to cut some costs by designing the fountain smaller. After the concrete was poured we realized it was not made to the size we expected and then we asked them to redesign it to the original size.

I believe that on top of that the committee did not approve their original whirligig type designs and they were asked to redo the art part.

This was all in the works before we raised issues about the toy designs presented at the General Membership meeting.

A second thing brought out at the meeting was the Art In Public Places and Lykes Foundation were withdrawing from the art component of the project. The $75,000 for the fountain was still there but the $25,000 for the art was withdrawn. Ostensibly it was because they needed to move onto other projects and when the artist withdrew from this project, it was no longer a project. Everything needed to start over again. So if we want art we need to reapply.

However I suspect there was more to it than that.

The Lykes Foundation had a grand plan of 10 fountain/art going up in these 10 parks of the Greenprinting process. I believe the foundation had their own vision as to what the art should be. And that was what their gift was going to be, their vision. However in our neighborhood, it was not make clear that was what was going to occur. So we thought we had a role in making that vision, the same way we did in making the overall park design. So I believe the rejection of the original designs by the committee then followed up by recent voluble discussion disturbed that vision. Then when the artists pulled out, it was too much. What this means for the future parks of the Greenprinting Program is that things need to be made very clear as what the neighborhood can expect as far as their role in this project is concerned. Once that is clear things should work better.

Several other items were discussed. I will just touch on that the most exciting is that the wrought aluminum fencing will be ordered next week or so with the fence to be complete 1st week of August. There will be 4 entrances to the park, roughly were the sidewalks leave the park or enter into the parking lot. The gate to the park form the parking lot will include some columns of some sort with a sign on it.

The biggest task facing the neighborhood is fundraising. Creative ideas are needed. Whether we do a lot of little bits of fundraising or big things, it all adds up and are needed.

We requested that, as much information and drawings be placed online so people review things at their leisure and be more aware of what is going on at the park.

The next meeting date for the Greenprinting Committee was not set at this meeting.