City of Beacon Arts and Culture Committee announced

Mayor Steve Gold has activated the City of Beacon Arts and Culture Committee. This committee was provided for in the city's charter, but, as Mayor Gold says in the letter before, it's never been populated. The Committee is co-chaired by Cabot Parsons and Robert Ruttigliano and can have up to 15 members which represent the various arts and business development groups in the city as well individual citizens artists and non artists. The committee will have no operating budget but conceivably, it can act as a bridge between the efforts of the city's various groups and individuals and foster and promote this an of the city which has had a notable impact on the character of the city in recent years. Mayor Gold posted both the letter below along with pdf attachments outlining the comittee's responsibilities and an application for those interested in being considered for membership over at the Beacon Citizen Network.

To the artists, arts organizations and arts patrons of Beacon:

Beacon has many amazing resources, natural and manmade. One extremely precious resource is the creative capital of our performing and visual artists and arts-related businesses, what they give to our community and the volunteer support they receive from so many residents and arts organizations. In times such as these it behooves us to do all we can to support and grow all of our resources for the benefit of the city and its residents, and to that end I am pleased to announce the formation of the City of Beacon Mayor’s Arts and Cultural Development Committee.

This is a committee that has been provided for in our charter but unpopulated until now. For some time both individuals and groups such as The Howland Cultural Center, Beacon Business Association, Beacon Arts Community Association, Beacon Art Salon, The Rutigliano Group and others have created projects and promoted Beacon as a cultural destination in ways too numerous to count. It is time for the city to formally support the arts in Beacon - to enrich all of us who call it our home, and as a significant economic driver where art is made and sold: creating jobs, filling our storefronts, bringing countless visitors to our city.

The committee’s task is to strengthen the arts in Beacon in all its facets, to support the efforts of the arts and business community organizations, and the Beacon community in all art related manner, including: serving as an advisory group to the City government, facilitating and/or sponsoring projects, creating ordinances and procedures for public art exhibitions and performances and other art-related programs that may be developed, providing a sounding board for city residents on issues related to arts and culture, promoting an understanding of the value of artistic and cultural expression and exchange in a free society as a rich resource to all Beacon citizens, businesses and visitors and at the Mayor’s request to represent the city in a larger context throughout the mid-Hudson valley and beyond.

In a formal sense the Arts and Cultural Development Committee is not authorized by the City Charter or by the Mayor to have regulatory powers such as the Planning Board, Zoning Board, nor does it have an annual operating budget. As outlined in the Charter its members will serve at the pleasure of the Mayor. The Mayor will be advised of the projects and priorities of this committee to ensure the support and agreement of the organizations represented in the committee’s membership and the public at large. The committee will neither replace any of the existing or future arts based organizations.

I have asked Cabot Parsons and Rob Rutigliano to lead this committee. The Committee will be composed of up to fifteen members of the Mayor’s selection and will include both artists and non-artists, long term residents and newcomers, and representatives of business including but not limited to (BBA, BACA) and individual artist (BAS) organizations. The committee will also involve members of such groups as The Howland Cultural Center, Dia: Beacon and the Main Street Corridor Committee as well as individuals representing all forms of visual and performance art.

If you’d like to be considered to serve on this committee, or to perhaps be involved in specific projects involving public art, cultural tourism, industrial development, education or special audience accessibility, please send a message of interest to mayor@cityofbeacon.org

I look forward to your support of this effort as we strengthen the civic commitment to the arts in Beacon as a real economic development engine and nourishing boon to all.

Thank you,
Steve Gold, Mayor

Current Affairs

I gotta tell you all, I've been feeling blogkt. I've got several posts that seemed of a timely nature that I've wanted to get up over the past couple of weeks, but it's just not happening. Maybe now that I've given words to this difficulty, the logjam will release and things can roll. If not, I may just step back a bit.

But in light of the fact that the interminable circus has packed up and left town for a couple of years, here are a few links vis a vis the constituency of art.
Andrew Taylor, the artful manager, has posted the text of the Obama/Biden campaign's policy relating to arts. Something to look forward to if he can get to it.

Prior to this week's election, Dutchess County Arts Council, Benjamin Krevolin, in his weekly Taconic Weekend column, made the case for a heretofore unheralded segment of motherhood - the Arts Mom. Benjamin's column made its way onto the Huffington Post.

Vote on the sale of old high school to be held March 4.

On March 4, Beacon residents will be asked to vote on whether or not to give the Beacon City School District permission to sell the old high school building - again. The building reverted back to the school district at the end of 2006 after the BCF filed for bankruptcy. An affirmative vote by the residents will allow the district to entertain any potential offers to purchase the property. Word has it that there have been parties interested in acquiring the building, but I don't know if there is a current offer on the table. Last week the Poughkeepsie Journal announced the upcoming vote and stated that proceeds from an eventual sale, after expenses, will be used to reduce the tax levy.

Residents can vote on the sale of the old Beacon High School from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. March 4. Polls will be at Beacon High School, Glenham Elementary School, Chelsea Firehouse and the district bus garage. The school district covers the City of Beacon and portions of the towns of Fishkill and Wappinger. Call 845-838-6900 ext. 2017.

In June 2002, voters approved the sale of the high school to Terminal Associates for the creation of the Decorative Arts and Design Institute. Plans for that project never came to fruition, and eventually, under the management of the Beacon Cultural Foundation, the building was opened as artist studios in 2003.

Update: On March 5th, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported the vote results: 496 to 41 to allow the BCSD to sell the building.

Zahra Studio in the news and the news according to Zahra Studio

photo by Keith Zahra

Retrogression, the exhibit on view at the Gallery at Zahra Studio was featured in Kathleen Murray's column in POJO's Friday, October 19 edition.

Keith Zahra has recently added to his website his account of his drawn out and personally expensive fight with the City of Beacon to secure his ability to lawfully operate his tatoo studio on Main St.

In his narrative, Keith mentions a law passed in December 2000 that was intended to do an end run around his business' grandfathered status for a previous regulation limiting the approved locations for tattoo parlors to industrial areas. The cited law is from Chapter 223, Article III relating to General Regulations regarding zoning in the City's code.

Below is the text of the regulation:

K. Discontinuance of existing tattoo and body-piercing
parlors. [Added 12-4-2000 by L.L. No. 18-2000]
(1) Legislative intent. The
City Council hereby finds that certain business activities, in this case tattoo and body-piercing parlors, by their nature have seriously objectionable operational characteristics which can lead to significant impacts on the surrounding community. The City Council further finds that the establishment of such uses would be inconsistent with the existing development and future plans for the City of Beacon in that such uses often result in influences on the community which undermine its economic, physical and social welfare. Further, such uses have been found to contribute to the blighting of surrounding residential and commercial areas as a result of the deterring of investment in and improvement of surrounding properties. For these reasons, such uses can adversely impact the general health, safety and economic well-being of the entire community. In addition, the location of these uses may be in areas where youth may regularly assemble, and the general atmosphere encompassing their operation is of great concern to the City Council.
Prohibiting the establishment of tattoo and body-piercing parlors in the City will eliminate their potential accessibility to children and ensure that the effects of such businesses will not adversely affect the health, safety and economic well-being of the community. Further, it has been the experience of other municipalities, including the City of New York, that tattooing has led to increased cases of serum hepatitis. It has also been their experience that regulatory measures have proved ineffective in eliminating this health risk because of the inability to supervise tattooing establishments at all times. The City of Beacon also lacks the resources and personnel to supervise tattooing establishments on an ongoing basis. Accordingly, the City Council finds that in this City, as in other communities, a ban on tattooing
establishments under the City Code, except for medical purposes, is the only
feasible means of protecting the public against disease from this source.

(2) Discontinuance. The following provisions pertain to tattoo and body-piercing parlors which are in existence on the effective date of this section. Said tattoo and body-piercing parlors shall be discontinued for the reasons stated in Subsection K(1) above, in accordance with the following schedule which is based upon the amount of
capital investment involved in the conversion of a subject premises into a tattoo and/or body-piercing parlor. The owner of each building or the operator of each establishment to which this section pertains shall provide capital investment information, which has been certified by a registered architect or engineer, to the Building Department, and the Building Department shall have the authority to make the final determination as to the amount of capital investment which has occurred.
Capital Investment as of Effective Date of this Section
Date on or Before Which Use Shall Terminate
$0 to 25,000 June 30, 2001
$25,001 to $50,000 June 30, 2002
More than $50,000 June 30, 2003

The section I highlighted in red sounds more indicative of the kind of activity you're likely to find outside of our Main St. gas stations than what you'd ever see happening at Zahra's.

Keith has been touting October 15 of this year as the Lucky 7 Year Anniversary of when his struggle began.

It seems like this issue is still very much open, and so is Zahra Studio, but Keith wants this regulation stricken from the books so that he can operate lawfully and without fear of any capricious action of enforcement.

This Just in....

Dateline Beacon:

It seems that Robert Brush has reached the required number of signatures to make it on to the ballot in his bid to become Beacon's next Mayor.