More public art coming to BC

By Cassie Tomlin

Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 | 8:47 p.m.

Boulder City will continue to buy bronze sculptures for public display downtown using Redevelopment Agency money, the board decided Tuesday afternoon, following pleas from art enthusiasts and area business owners.

About $60,000 in redevelopment funds will buy a new piece, “Pebbler’s Lunch Break,” for this summer’s new Public Artscape display.

The City Council, sitting as the Redevelopment Agency board, voted 3-2 to buy the sculpture and to continue annual purchases, as long as the board has final approval. Members Travis Chandler and Linda Strickland voted no, calling the purchase inappropriate in this economic climate.

In redevelopment areas, a baseline valuation on property within the area is marked, and tax money realized from increases in property values from that point is used for grants to improve blighted area.

In 2007, the Redevelopment Agency approved spending $60,000 on public art every year until 2011. The city has so far bought two sculptures for permanent display. The other sculptures along Nevada and Arizona are donated by artists for a yearlong display, except for one that receives the most votes as “people’s choice,” which the Artscape committee purchases, or unless private residents or clubs buy them from the artists to stay permanently, like several have been.

Strickland said she supports the program, but suggested suspending it. This year, spending $60,000 on a sculpture and its installation is a “slap in the face” to residents struggling with finances, she said.

“Do you feel in your heart it’s OK to tell people who’ve lost their jobs that we as a city are supporting paying $60,000 for a bronze sculpture to sit in our town?” she said.

Councilman Andrea Anderson said the agency needs to “at the very least finish what we started,” and continue buying sculptures until 2011.

At its next meeting, in July, the agency will have $600,000 in unappropriated redevelopment funds.

It will discuss spending that money on building public restrooms in Bicentennial Park, landscaping and lighting Nevada Highway, replacing the Buchanan Boulevard sewer lines and replacing old overhead power lines downtown.