Upon further reflection, Iowa City Council members balk on supporting ‘The Lens’

IOWA CITY - With a full council in attendance this time and a change of vote by Mayor Jim Throgmorton and Council member Kingsley Botchway, the $50,000 in funding to kick start fundraising for the polarizing downtown public art piece called The Lens has failed a second time.

The Iowa City Council on Tuesday voted 5-2 - with only council members Terry Dickens and Susan Mims in support - against allocating $50,000 to the Iowa City Downtown District to hire a fundraiser who would work to secure the more than $500,000 for construction and $50,000 for long-term maintenance for The Lens project. The Lens has been proposed for installation in the Black Hawk Mini Park near the intersection of Dubuque and Washington streets.

Throgmorton, who voted last month in favor of the funding along with Botchway, said at that time the item was already positioned to fail and his vote was a 'gesture or act of respect” to residents and city staff who had been involved in the process for more than a year.

'The motion was going to fail, it was going to fail 3-3 or it was going to fail 4-2,” Throgmorton said of the previous vote on Feb. 2. 'Maybe I made, if you will, a political blunder because it got us back into this room. I know it set up misleading expectations about how things might go today.”

Throgmorton's change of vote resulted in mixed emotions from those in the crowd with some criticizing the move and others applauding.

A divided public was commonplace at Tuesday's meeting, with more than a dozen people speaking about the sculpture, with individuals both opposed and in support of the project and/or the city providing funding.

'We're divided, the public is divided, the council's divided,” Throgmorton said.

Following the funding vote, members of the public requested the council vote to show support of the project in general, to help determine the next course of action on funding the effort.

That motion, to show council support for The Lens on the Pedestrian Mall, failed with a 4-3 vote.

'I truly believe we can come up with a concept for Black Hawk Mini Park,” City Council Member John Thomas said. 'Unfortunately, I'm not seeing that and hearing that at this point.”

Mims argued that such a move could have a larger impact on future efforts.

'There has been a really big public process and I think at this point for the council to not support this ... it really puts in question any kind of public engagement we would ask from our community members in the future,” she said.

Those two votes put the future of The Lens into question, with many at Tuesday's meeting declaring the art piece dead without the council's support.

While the Iowa City Manager typically has the authority to spend $50,000 without approval from the council, Simon Andrew, assistant to the city manager, said such a significant project requires a council vote.

On Feb. 2, after deferring the matter from a previous meeting, the council decided to come to a conclusion on the matter rather than defer again and voted 3-3 with council members Rockne Cole, Pauline Taylor and John Thomas opposed and Terry Dickens absent. Without majority approval, the measure failed.

Later that month, three members of the council voted to bring the item back before the council for a full 7-member vote on Tuesday.

More than a year ago the Iowa City Public Art Advisory Committee selected London's Cecil Balmond as their preferred artist to create the pedestrian mall's signature art piece. Soon after, the city entered a $25,000 contract with Genus Landscape Architects to facilitate the design process with Balmond.

Last fall the city got its first look at Balmond's proposed project The Lens, which has drawn mixed reviews from the public.

Marcia Bollinger, neighborhood outreach coordinator, who has been coordinator for the Iowa City Public Art Program, said that is to be expected with any piece of public art.

'You're never going to get unanimous support ... in terms of its visual presence,” Bollinger said.