Olds council is considering creating a policy on public art in the town.
But some councillors are balking at the concept, concerned about facing the kind of backlash that councillors in Calgary have faced over public art projects, some of which aren't very popular.
Director of community services Doug Wagstaff presented a draft of the policy during the town's final policies and priorities meeting of 2018, noting it will be brought back to council for decision at a later date.
The policies would establish rules for setting up a committee to assist council and administration in all aspects of public art.
“There’s a very active art community in and around our community,” said Wagstaff.
“Part of this is catching up to them because they are really engaged and wanting to do something both privately and with the municipality. This provides us that framework and formalizes it.”
Wagstaff also noted that council would have final approval over any expenditures that are related to public art within Olds.
“I’m of two minds. The one mind is saying yes, let a committee of artists and whatever make final decisions on behalf of town council,” Coun. Mary Jane Harper said.
“The other part of me is saying as what happens with the City of Calgary and they have a committee that makes decisions on behalf of city council and when the decisions are not right, it’s not the committee that takes the blame, it’s the city council."
An example of that is the controversy around Travelling Light, better known as the blue ring on 96th Avenue in Calgary.
“I agree totally,” said Coun. Heather Ryan. “The whole problem I see is that once you start formalizing things with public policies when it comes to public art, it’s so subjective.”
“We’re going to get blamed if somebody doesn’t like it, so the final decision should rest with us in the first place.”
Ryan raised concern about the financial side of publicly funded art.
“I’m worried about having a public art policy that says ‘yes we’re going to automatically give money every year to public art.’ I’m not sure that we want to go down that path,” she said.
Coun. Mary Anne Overwater shared those concerns.
“I think that just because we say that we have money for art doesn’t mean that we have to spend it each year,” she said.
Overwater also shared that while she has no problem with the concept of an arts advisory committee, she believes at least one or two council members should sit on it.
In the end, it was decided that those comments would be taken into account before the policy is brought back to council later this year.
