Provincetown Art Commission

Minutes for meeting Dec. 22,1999

The following minutes are available on-line as a service and are not the official record due to changes in formatting for the Internet. The minutes may have attachments that are not included here in this format. The official, complete paper copy can be viewed during regular office hours, Monday - Friday: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial St. Provincetown, MA 02657.

Meeting convened at 4:15 pm. Members present were Julie Heller, Neva Hansen & Constance Black. Peter Garza was invited to attend since he is an applicant for membership.

The first order of business was interviewing Peter Garza for membership since

Julie Heller will be required to step down on December 31, '99 since she has

served three terms, This will leave the committee with not enough members for

a quorum. Julie Heller spoke about the commission and its responsibilities for town art collection which is worth almost a million dollars. Peter Garza

expressed an interest in becoming a member. he commission then voted to

recommend his membership. He will get sworn in before our next meeting in

January. Since there are several positions open, Neva Hansen will put notices in

the Provincetown Advocate and The Provincetown Banner asking for applicants.

Copies of the report from Stuart Dean with estimates of the cost of restoring the

town bronze sculpture were distributed. A cursory examination showed that it will

be a very costly undertaking. Julie suggested that funding be sought from the

DPW budget. The work in the past was funded by the DPW. However, the

Maintenance of the restoration recommended was never pursued. That is the reason that we are faced now with high costs. We agreed that we had to take time to study the report before we could

make any decisions. It was agreed that the sculpture by Richard Pepitone which now belongs to the town cannot be repaired with a bronze base as he wishes. We do not have the money to even match a grant if that should be

granted. Since the sculpture belongs to the town, the final decision rests in our hands.

Related to this and other issues, Julie suggested that we submit an article to

town meeting asking the town to vote to ratify the committee since there is no recod of such a vote.

record of such a vote. This would give us more legal clout.

Julie expressed a concern about the conservation work proceeding on schedule.

She gave a list of ongoing projects. Notably, the $1,000.00 grant will be used to

construct custom made flat files, art work will be stored archivally with acid free

paper and cardboard.. The commission voted to delegate Julie to continue with

conservation projects and to give the commission a list and report of the progress

of all projects. She consented to being a consultant for the commission since

she holds all the paperwork and is in a position to know all the details.

Next meeting will be Jan. 5, '00 at 4 pm at the Town Hall.

Vote to adjourn.

Respectfully submitted: Constance Black