PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend City Council has postponed consideration of a process for approving temporary and permanent artwork on public streets until after the city arts commission has had a chance to vet it.
The proposal had been on the agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting, but on Saturday, council consideration of final approval was moved to Sept. 21.
“We’re postponing the second reading of the arts policy as the Arts Commission was unable to provide their review in the limited time they had,” said City Manager John Mauro in an email.
The commission, which discussed the proposed update to how public art is approved during its monthly meeting Wednesday, made no recommendation as to whether the new language should be adopted.
Instead, members agreed they were not afforded enough time to properly vet the proposed process.
“The process is too rushed for us to do due diligence on this matter,” commission member Dan Groussman said. “I am not in favor of the way it is currently worded. I’ve voiced dissent here. I think there should be changes. I question how this got this far without consulting us.”
It was their first meeting since the pandemic started, and most of the panel members were newly appointed to fill out unexpired terms, Mauro said.
“Given the Arts Commission’s important role in the accompanying process (much like the Historic Preservation Committee), we want to ensure that City Council has their feedback as part of the deliberations,” he said in the email.
The date of the next meeting of the arts commission was not available over the weekend.
City staff brought the first iteration of its attempt to formalize the approval process before City Council on Aug. 17, two months after the council gave its blessing to a temporary “Black Lives Matter” mural along Water Street in the city’s historic downtown.
That mural was proposed and quickly approved in the week prior to a Juneteenth Freedom March, with the Arts Commission providing $500 for supplies.
Commission member Michelle Hagewood said the process for approving that mural “was problematic as far as timing.”
“We were in a position to not be able to question that in the same way,” she said, adding that establishing a formal process would allow the commission more time to consider a project’s full scope, including design.
Under the current version of the proposed process, the commission would review applications and make recommendations either to the city manager or City Council.
The city manager would have authority to approve temporary art installations — anything that would last a year or less — and the City Council would maintain its authority to approve permanent public art projects.
The city would be able to deny an application for artwork depicting violent images, sexually graphic images, religious symbols, hatred of persons or groups of people, support for or opposition to a candidate or initiative on the ballot, imagery that may be inappropriate to maintain in or upon public property, and advertisements of a good or service for purchase.
Asserting that there are three kinds of art — religious, political and art for art’s sake — Groussman said he would oppose allowing any kind of political art.
“I strongly suggest that our city heed my advice and not use taxpayer funding for politically motivated art,” he said.
City Attorney Heidi Greenwood said political art cannot simply be banned since it is considered protected speech under the First Amendment, but that the city could create limits in how it defines allowable displays of political art.
“The issue we have now is we’ve opened our public streets to political art,” said Groussman, “and we probably need to be inclusive of other people’s viewpoints because we’ve done so.”
Port Townsend resident James Scarantino agrees, according to a Tuesday letter from his attorney to City Manager John Mauro.
That letter says Mauro put Scarantino’s request for a “Blue Lives Matter” mural on hold — along with Port Townsend Pride’s request for a rainbow-colored crosswalk and the Plankton Project’s proposal for wall murals depicting kelp forests and Dungeness crab — while a formal approval process is developed.
In the letter, Scarantino’s attorney requests that his proposal be subject to the same process applied in June to the “Black Lives Matter” mural.
“We want a pro-law enforcement message painted on the street on the same terms,” Scarantino said in an email.
Just like its Aug. 17 meeting, the City Council’s next discussion will focus on establishing a process for approving street art, not the specific content of street art proposals.
Nevertheless, written public comments received on the issue Aug. 17 unanimously called on the city to allow a pro-law enforcement mural.
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Jefferson County reporter Nicholas Johnson can be reached at njohnson@peninsuladailynews.com.
