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The South Main Public Art Initiative RFP clearly states: "The South Main Public Arts Initiative’s review and approval process is designed to provide for substantial input and participation by representatives from the Public Works Agency, The Arts &Culture Office, Santa Ana City Council, and other stakeholder groups in order to ensure that each project accommodates the requirements of the public place in which it is sited.” We feel that review by the South Main Neighborhood Alliance provides this important stakeholder group with the input and participation required of this project. Copied on this letter are South Main Neighborhood Alliance members Irma Jauregui and Ginelle Hardy who can share the artist proposals with the full group and provide you with scores/rankings/recommendations very quickly. Their emails are irmapj@yahoo.com and ginelleann@gmail.com There were also problems with the structure of the South Main Public Art application as there were no Information Sessions, Application Workshops, or Technical Assistance Opportunities for applicants. Technical Specs were not given until after the application was released, and there were no “Vision Statement” or Budgetary Guidelines, which confused applicants and muddled many submissions. Since there was no one with historical knowledge of South Main vetting the proposals, there was no way to ensure that proposals were historically accurate. As a result, there was an application that spotlighted a building not located on South Main, the Holly Sugar Co, which was located on Grand and Warner and was rife with a history of Labor disputes. One of the high scoring applicants submit work samples which were images downloaded from the internet and not her original work. If she did not have copyright permission or clearances at the time of her proposal submission, that would constitute plagiarism and profiting from another artist’s intellectual property. As a result, this project was proposed using photos from the internet and “clip art” the applicant had no right to use. Another major shortfall in the evaluation process was not allowing submitting artists an opportunity to explain their work or answer questions from evaluators. Artist Presentations are usually done when Public Art is being considered as the projects must function within a built environment and to answer questions from the panelists. For example, the City of San Diego Commission of Arts and Culture allows applicants the opportunity to respond to panelist questions regarding proposals in person prior to submission of final scores. The result of all the above shortcomings resulted in a questionable scoring with the projects having the most artistic rigor scoring the lowest and those with the sloppiest research and poor visual design scoring the highest. This is a travesty and a disservice to all applicants and does not reflect best practices. As mentioned earlier, the scoring was so problematic, it was called into question by Commissioners themselves in the September 16 ACC meeting. United Artists of Santa Ana looks forward to having the above-listed and attached issues corrected and a fair and transparent process is maintained to ensure that quality Public Art is selected that is in alignment with South Main’s history and visual design and is free of violations of ethics and equity. We would be happy to discuss the matter further with you. Please confirm receipt of this letter. Sincerely, United Artists of Santa Ana, Governing Board Ruben Alvarez 3