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Orozco, Norma From: Sean De Wine <dewine9@aol.com> Sent: Monday, October 18, 2021 11:13 AM To: eComment, Lopez, Jessie; !City Clerk Subject: Public works, RFP Arts Council, Skeith DeWine Categories: Correspondence October 15th, 2021 Dear Santa Ana City Council Members, Arts Commissioners and Staff, My name is Skeith DeWine and I am one of the applicants for the South Main Public Arts Initiative. My project was dismissed from the application process without my having the ability to clarify my proposal or answer any questions about my project. Further, it appears that many of the Arts Commissioners just skimmed through the project rather than read it and see that I supplied many answers to Arts Commissioner questions that were raised about my project. Especially frustrating is that during the creation of the "RFP" no consideration was given to budget guidelines for Public Art submitted. To this day, I do not know what the budget specifications are and have been denied a response when I requested an answer. Further, no vision statement, thematic or design guidelines were supplied at the time of RFP release. Information was very vague on support from the City of Santa Ana in offsetting the costs and technical execution of our Public Art submissions. This especially relates to technical aspects of a project like electrical connections, foundations or sidewalk construction. Are they to be carried out by the City or at the expense of the Artist? That has still not been clarified to this point in time. Another huge misstep was to have no Information Sessions, Application Workshops, or Technical Assistance supplied by the City of Santa Ana. These workshops are vital and a common practice in just about every other city in California, like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. I am an Arts Professional and have helped build up Santa Ana's art community for a great many years, including Co - Founding the Santa Ana ArlWalk and being the Santora Arts Building's longest lease holder. As I have invested heavily in this city, in branding it and help bring investment, I merit some consideration by Arts Commissioners. At the last ACC meeting, Arts Commissioners made glib comments about historic Santa Ana and the culture of the Main Street District. The addition of Historic Themes seems like it was added as an afterthought. With no Historical Info Session, artists were challenged to modify projects already being envisioned. The four -week extension given to accommodate the contextual themes, could have helped artists flesh out historical concepts with workshops and Technical Assistance. I watched two of my art colleges drop out because they did not have enough time to modify their projects. Bringing more humiliation to the submission process was the confusion caused as 3 Arts Commissioners resigned during the RFP submission period. When I inquired why, no explanation was given. More upsetting is to recently learn that several Santa Ana Arts Commissioners are professional and creative colleagues of applicants submitting to the South Main Street Public Arts Initiative. Why didn't these Commissioners recuse themselves from the selection process? In my experience serving on arts boards throughout California, a separate Selection Committee is recruited to promote equity and unbiased voting. These committees are usually comprised of regional arts specialists. Implementing a fair and unbiased assessment of Public Art proposals is essential, because they are supported with public funds from city tax payers.