BURLINGTON — City officials and members of the public are upset that Burlington City Arts missed a deadline by over six months to add a new placard next to the “Everyone Loves a Parade” mural.
BCA Executive Director Doreen Kraft said at a Wednesday meeting of the City Council’s Parks, Arts and Culture Committee that the department missed the March 1 deadline for the placard, which is supposed to explain how the mural is “not a comprehensive representation of Burlington’s history,” and a subject of local controversy.
Kraft said she anticipates that the vandalized portion of mural will be restored in mid-October and that the placard will be added around that time, printed in English and French.
The mural has been the topic of wide ranging scrutiny from locals. Critics say it lacks diversity and leaves out important people of color in the community, especially Native Americans. The mural has been previously vandalized twice. The suspects in the vandalism had been referred to the restorative justice panel.
The full City Council passed a resolution in October 2018 after a task force recommendation asking BCA to give updates on possible relocation sites, setting a goal to relocate it by Aug. 29, 2022, and to add the new placard.
Councilor Ali Dieng, who voted against the original resolution because he felt the 2022 deadline was too far out, voiced his frustration with the lack of accountability on members of the administration for their failure to meet the deadline for the placard.
Dieng then asked Kraft if the only reason the placard was not updated by the March 1 deadline was because of repeated vandalism.
“Just that, more work got put on City Arts’ plate for management, that’s all,” Kraft replied. “We got behind in doing this work when we took the task on of managing [this] for the city.”
“We know we’re behind,” she continued.
Kraft elaborated by saying there is a complicated procedural sequence to make the restorations and update the placard, adding how the vandalism only complicated the issue when a large tarp covered parts of the mural.
Dieng grew visibly frustrated.
“Why didn’t you update the City Council on it, while everybody went silent, not telling us ‘We cannot update this placard because these are the reasons.’ It was total silence and I want to know why,” Dieng asked Kraft.
Committee Chair Joan Shannon clarified how the committee was meant to be the “ears” for the City Council regarding this issue, but if the council wanted an update, it could have asked for one. Dieng felt his question was still valid.
Shannon agreed an update should have been made sooner but asked to “move forward.”
Kraft apologized to Dieng, who also said BCA did not commission the mural but has made a “generous gesture” in helping to resolve the issue. A further part of the resolution asked BCA to reword their guidelines about how they commission public arts projects.
Dieng made clear his feelings on how, per the resolution, BCA should address the mural before working on any other projects. Kraft disagreed with this interpretation, citing logistical difficulties in focusing on one project at a time.
Prior to discussion, members of the public aired their concerns over the mural.
“You can’t punish somebody because you don’t like their viewpoint,” Norm Fischer said, who feels as though taking the mural down would violate freedom of speech and the First Amendment rights of the artist, Canadian Pierre Hardy.
Hardy had previously told City Council he was open to the idea of modifying the mural, but removing it would be “a sad outcome.”
“[The mural] is an offense to me as a white person because it is institutionalized white supremacy,” Lea Terhune said. “It’s an embarrassment — that’s not what our city stands for.”
Terhune was also urging the committee to not allow the mural in any public space and was upset with how previous sketches of the mural included people of color, including the Obama family, but were “whitewashed.”
After the discussion closed, Terhune tried to ask more questions about the mural, but was denied, and quickly left the room.
