At the Monday, March 1 meeting of Lancaster City council committees, the public works committee approved a motion to appoint a new advisory board to guide the city’s current and future collection of public art.

If approved by council, the volunteer public art advisory board would play a number of art-related consulting roles; however, the entity’s primary function would be to develop and maintain a codified process for implementation of artworks proposed or donated for public rights-of-way.

The seven member board would include one appointee from city council, while the rest of the members would be individuals rooted in the city’s art community.

Mayor Rick Gray explained that, as things currently stand, the vetting of proposed public art projects is essentially left to his office alone. The establishment of this board, Gray said, would create an opportunity for such matters to be assessed with a more expert eye while engaging the public more comprehensively than in the past.

The specific powers of the public art advisory board would be the following:

1. “Foster and develop public awareness of the public art within the City of Lancaster”
2. “Advising the Mayor and City Council with respect to matters relating to the development of public art awareness within the City of Lancaster”
3. “Assisting the City in the preparation of planning documents including guidelines, master plans and strategic planning documentation as the same or related to public art and the public awareness of the public art within the City”
4. “Making recommendations to the Mayor as to how vacancies shall be filled on the Board when they arise”
5. “Overseeing the maintenance of the City’s Public Art collection”
   
6. “Administering any public art programs established by the City of Lancaster in accordance with any policies and guidelines either established by the City or established by the Public  Art Advisory Board at the request of Council”
7. “Performing such other and further duties related to public art within the City of Lancaster as the Mayor may request”

The proposal for this new board comes largely from the efforts of recently recruited public art director Leslie Fordham, who hails from Vail, Colorado. Fordham was hired by the City for a three-year period paid for by the Lancaster County Community Foundation.