After what City Councilman Keith Rodgerson, I-133, calls a "two-year struggle," the framework is in place, after winning recent council approval, for the next mayor to empanel a seven-member arts commission, including artists and other art advocates who would direct city spending on local arts endeavors.
That money is anticipated to be generated by a new stipulation — likely to be part of the city's next master plan — that 1 percent of funding for city construction projects be used for advancement of the arts, according to Rodgerson, who is running for mayor this year under the banner of the new Bridgeport First party. Specifically, this "1 Percent for the Arts" ordinance would allocate 1 percent of the money for public construction to "on-site public art." The new master plan, he said, may be approved by the City Council as soon as November. Rodgerson said that not all public projects would lend themselves to public displays of art — a Public Works Department sand storage shed, for example. In these cases, the 1 percent art allocation would go to a public arts fund, he said.
"The commission will soften up the interface between the arts community and the city of Bridgeport," he said. "Each year, the commission will propose a budget for the City Council, and for the first time, a group of professional artists will guide these decisions."
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Under rules set forth in the city charter, the mayor must ultimately appoint members to this or any other commission. "Right now, we're casting a wide net to find people in the arts to serve on the commission," the council member said. Mayor John M. Fabrizi said that since appointing members to municipal commissions is an involved process, which can take as long as six months, it would be best to leave it up to the new city administration. Fabrizi is not running for re-election this year.
"The requirements for making appointments to commissions do not allow for that to happen in a short time," Fabrizi said. "First you have to advertise for the positions in the paper. Then after you get their resumes, you have to do background checks — to make sure they're up to speed with their taxes — and then their names have to go before the full council before they're referred to the Ethics Committee. Finally, after the Ethics Committee OK's them, they have to be approved by the full council."
Rodgerson said that he has "a list of artists who would be willing to serve" and is ready to provide those names to Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Finch, who prevailed in the Sept. 11 Democratic primary, defeating challenger Chris Caruso. That outcome is being challenged in court by Caruso.
"Assuming Bill wins, I'm putting names in, just for the sake of getting this thing going," Rodgerson said.
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