Public Art DOA, Waterside Won't Survive

Does this painting meet your "standards?"

Public Art DOA

I am saddened. I weep. I am despondent.

Public art enthusiasts had a setback.

A bill permitting artists to contract with localities or non-profit organizations to install public art was defeated in a Virginia House of Delegates committee.

Under Virginia law, the installation of public art requires a contractor’s license. The bill, HB 1969, if passed, would have waived that requirement.

Del. Matthew James, D-80, introduced the bill at the behest of Norfolk city officials.

The non-profit clause of the defeated bill ties in with the proposal to create a non-profit organization to run a public arts district in Norfolk.

The proposal, entitled Norfolk Emerging Arts District, has the support of city officials and the quasi-private organization, the Downtown Norfolk Council. 

Stay tuned. 

Privateers on the Loose

Tonight, the big guns and the big dogs will be at Nauticus tonight to pitch and pander to public and private interest and pontificate on port privatization. 

Beginning at 5pm, hear arguments from APM Terminals and JP Morgan why it’s in the best interest of the public to lease them the state-owned marine terminals for three generations.

Hear the opposition – which is weak-kneed and insipid and hasn’t mounted a concrete case against turning the operations of port over to a global conglomerate.

Whatever the state decides, it is crucial to keep in the mind that Gov. Bob’s present administration, including Secretary Transportation, Sean Connaughton and his cult of admirers, will be gone in less than a year.

And we will have to deal with the fallout from their decisions.

Will Gov. Bob and his administration, with the support of some Virginia lawmakers, restructure the Virginia Port Authority and its affiliate Virginia International Terminals Inc?

Or will it betray the public and the local maritime community for a few pieces of silver?

Waterside won’t Survive

Politicians have a tendency to say what they don’t mean and don’t mean what they say.

Or they blame the media for misquoting them or taking their statements “out of context.”

Consider Mr. Protogyrou’s comments on Norfolk’s proposed hotel and conference center for The Plot’s plot, dubbed euphemistically an urban park. 

(The city should dress up this "plot" by putting manikins of city council members in the empty metal chairs.) 

“Waterside will not survive without the conference center, and the conference center will not survive without Waterside,” Norfolk City Councilman Andy Protogyrou said in a recent press article.  

I reviewed the April, 2012, analysis of The Cordish Cos. proposal to transform Waterside into a Las Vegas style venue by consultants Huntley Partners of Atlanta and home-grown guru H. Blount Hunter Retail and Real Estate Research Company of Norfolk.

I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find a notation, phrase, statement or warning that Waterside will not survive without “the” conference center.

Odd. 

Didn’t Harvey Lindsay, the other proposer, propose to transform a portion of Waterside into a conference center?

 Publisher's Note: Painting done by Xtian Newswanger, Paris, 1926