Breanna on the ARTS COMMUNITY _ The Report

Arts and CultureMedford has a strong artist community. 

 From Spotlight and other performance arts to the growing amount of public art, and the rich arts programming across the city, it’s clear that art is a part of most people’s lives in Medford. The Chevalier is perhaps the most glaring example that arts also contribute to our economy in meaningful ways, but it is also important that the overall role of the creative economy in Medford be appreciated as well. 
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There is significant support to have the Mayor embrace branding Medford as a creative cultural home and take concrete steps to support that effort. This is consistent with many other cities with blue-collar roots who have opened their doors to artists as the nature of manufacturing and light industrial areas change in the 21st century economy. 


There are several concrete steps the Mayor can consider in support of the arts:

1)Build a bridge between the business community and the artist community. Beautifying the squares is a consistent economic development priority. Vacant storefronts or existing businesses and privately-owned public spaces would be enhanced through a more concrete partnership between the nonprofit artist community, the Chamber of Commerce and private business. 


2)Ensure City Hall includes someone responsible for serving as a liaison with the arts community. The coordination of approvals and location and logistics for arts programming is critical. While the City is under budget constraints and it’s not clear whether a fulltime art liaison is affordable even though it’s desirable, assigning a specific point of contact to support the arts as part of their role is essential. This person would help to ensure artists installations continue to exist in City Hall. The role could exist in the Mayor’s office, but could also exist in the Office of Community Development (OCD) where many peer cities organize this work as part of an interdisciplinary team. Locating the work in OCD could support greater placemaking emphasis and more strategic planning with arts and culture central to that thinking.


3)Medford Arts Council distributes grants to artists made possible through financial support from the Mass. Cultural Council and an appropriation from the City of Medford. There is a strong desire to continue this partnership in support of the arts to provide funding throughout the City. The Medford Arts Council has been able to take a strategic approach to its grantmaking. This is a potential model for how to approach prioritization of scarce program dollars in the city.

pg. 154)Support a permanent home for the arts. A feasibility study has been commissioned to study the potential to transition the Hegner Center, located at 15 Maple Park Ave. near Gillis field into an arts center. While there appears to be consensus within the arts community to support this location specifically, there is a strong desire for the Mayor to support the creation of an arts center that would create a dedicated home for Medford’s artists and community-based organization. The arts community has asked the new Administration to be clear about the path forward on Hegner’s future, including questions about procurement and legal structure for a ground lease or other transfer. It’s worth noting that the long-term operating costs of the Arts Center would not be a city responsibility under the current Hegner proposal.5)Embrace performance arts to activate our public spaces and engage young people. Dance and music areamazing opportunities for youth development. While the Medford Recreation Department has done great workin its short history, expanding programming well beyond active sports and swimming is a worthy goal. Planning, Growth and Development The Transition Subcommittee held two public listening sessions to identify instances of consensus, divergent opinions, opportunities for improvements to residents’ quality of life and how best to meet community needs as they pertain to planning, growth and development. This document focuses on three key areas and makes both short-term and long-term recommendations for each:1. Zoning Regulation and Development Policy2. Transparent and Effective Public Process3. Growth and Organizational FunctionIt is important to note that throughout the process key themes were identified repeatedly: communication, transparency and responsiveness as well as the immediate opportunities and benefits to improving technology, process and culture. Although these can be applied across all areas of service, this report focuses closely on how they relate to planning, growth and development. The general takeaways from our research and discussions are as follows:1)Resident and guest interactions should be conducted with an eye towards fostering a customer service culture. Opportunities to improve communication include: •Frequent, timely and clear community engagement efforts and outward communications from City Hall•Expedite inbound communication response / update / resolution time frames•Facilitate communication between and among departments2)Use of the City website as a portal for information and data sharing. Make all documentation readily available to the public and digitized for real time access. It is recommended that process mapping and frequently asked question (FAQ) should be the first among items publicized. 3)Structure teams and secure resources to assure that residents’ needs are being investigated, responded to and ultimately addressed.

pg. 164)Uphold zoning ordinances and conduct reviews for loopholes that threaten our neighborhoods, for opportunities to modernize our code, and encourage purposeful growth. 5)There are significant benefits to improving and broadening Medford’s Planning Growth and Development (PGD)processes, which are uniformly viewed as poorly structured, ineffective, ambiguous, incomplete and poorly communicated. A compilation of representative comments received at PGD listening sessions along with the Committee’s overall assessment and recommendations to address community concerns follows within