Art of necessity

The scales still glisten in the midday sun, but there’s a chip in the old dragon’s shoulder and graffiti on its nose. The bench, one of many in downtown Chico, is, at least, still around, which is more than can be said of another honoring John Muir that used to rest outside Christian Michaels Ristorante. That one succumbed to what many public art projects in Chico have been suffering from—a lack of upkeep.

At its meeting Tuesday (March 20), the City Council took a step toward changing that, directing $10,000 annually to public art maintenance, a continuance of momentum that began last fall with the long-overdue repair of the “Our Hands” sculpture near City Hall. That item passed without much contention (all “ayes,” sans an absent Councilwoman Ann Schwab) during a gathering in which the drama ended up centering around comments on an issue that wasn’t on the agenda.

What’ll happen to the rest of the city’s community grant program funding ($40,000 now that $10,000 will go to art maintenance) is still up for debate. City Manager Mark Orme proposed three options: continue to offer it to local nonprofits through a competitive application process, get rid of the program and send the money back to the general fund, or, using the example of a 24-hour restroom, create a program to fund a much-needed or -desired public project.

Despite the Greater Chico Homeless Task Force’s recent memo recommending the city make restrooms available 24/7 as soon as possible, that example garnered no discussion from the council, which “punted” the question of what to do with the rest of the money, as Councilman Mark Sorensen phrased it, a few weeks out, until the budget is under review.

Sorensen’s initial motion was to send the money back to the general fund, which died in a tie-breaker vote with Councilmen Andrew Coolidge, Randall Stone and Karl Ory voting against. “Particularly after a near encounter with insolvency … we definitely need to focus on core services—police, parks, fire, roads, public infrastructure—more than ever,” Sorensen said.

Along with his support of funding public art maintenance, Ory added that he’d like the money to come from another source in the future, rather than the city’s community grant program, which should be used for support of nonprofit arts and service organizations.

The Chico Community Grant Program dedicates a small portion of general fund dollars to local nonprofits, ranging from the Museum of Northern California Art and Slow Theatre to Friends of Bidwell Park and Chico Meals on Wheels. Last year, the funding was cut in half—$50,000 was redirected to the police department’s budget. The end of Northern Valley Community Foundation’s fundraising match program Annie B’s Community Drive lessened the program’s effectiveness, Orme said.

Also on Tuesday, speaking during the public comment portion of the meeting, a contingent of community members upset about other citizens providing free food to homeless people asked the council to create a law that regulates such activity. Orme told the CN&R that there is no ordinance or anything currently being drafted related to such a law.

Josh Pitts approached the dais wearing the fluorescent garb of Downtown Property Based Improvement District Ambassadors, and said that a weekly food giveaway downtown (referring to the Sunday lunches organized by Chico Friends on the Street) lack safety and oversight and result in extensive trash and vandalism.

While a lot of those who are homeless are “fine people” who are “down on their luck,” the population itself is problematic, said downtown business owner Wayne Cook, and don’t just make it difficult on the business environment, but “poison it.”

“I want people fed,” he said. “This country has plenty of capacity to feed its poor and we need to do it somewhere else [other than] in the center of our city.”

The CN&R reached out to Patrick Newman, of Chico Friends on the Street, who said via email that the organization has been “protesting criminalization by meeting with homeless people in Chico City Plaza” for more than two years. The group has never left trash in the plaza, he said, cleaning the area every time it meets. “Where are we going, as a country,” he wrote, “when it becomes illegal to hand a homeless person a lunch or a clean pair of socks?”