Driving Downtown’s Destiny
308 West Rosemary Street Suite 202  Chapel Hill , North Carolina  27516
919-967-9440  

 

MEMORANDUM

 

To:       Mayor Kevin Foy and Members of the Chapel Hill Town Council

From:   Liz Parham, Executive Director

Date:    June 14, 2006

RE:      Clarification of the process used regarding the Giving Kiosk

 

 

The Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership is committed to developing high-quality projects and programming that will further the economic vitality of the downtown district and the soul of our community.

 

The organization intends to follow protocol that the Town Council outlines for such projects, but would like to convey to the Council the process that has been applied to date in developing this specific project.

 

During the process, the Downtown Partnership met with, requested advice and assistance from, and/or received input from the following groups or individuals: the Town Manager, Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission, Chapel Hill Police Department, the Town of Chapel Hill Public Works Department, the Town of Chapel Hill Parking Services, CCB Bank, BB&T, Downtown Partnership Safety Task Force, Orange County Arts Commission, Orange County Mental Health, Freedom House, Club Nova, El Futuro, IFC , and EMS.  In addition, there were several meetings with the private donor of this project, offering ample opportunity to provide feedback and to insure that there was comfort with the direction of the project.

 

Process

A private citizen approached the Downtown Partnership in August, 2005, with an idea that might provide giving opportunities for programs that could help those in need.  The idea was a Giving Kiosk, a functional collection site for monetary donations that could be designed by an artist to weave it into the fabric of the downtown streetscape.   Recognizing the potential cost of such a piece, the private citizen offered a donation of $18,000 for the artist selection, design, construction, and installation process.  The Partnership Board of Directors reviewed the project concept at their meeting on September 19, 2005 and unanimously voted to move forward with action steps to get this project accomplished.

 

Staff met with the Public Arts Commission Executive Director, Kate Flory, for initial information and advice on selecting an artist and then spent six weeks during September and October, 2005, working with consultants Charles McLean with Philanthropy Now and Harv Mock with Planned Legacy on developing the technological concept of a kiosk that we believed would serve as the operating mechanics of the piece.  It was envisioned that an artist would be selected to design a creative encasement around the kiosk.  There were several problems with the proposal:

1.         The cost estimate for a technologically advanced kiosk exceeded the proposed budget for project before an artist could design an encasement.

2.         The proposed kiosk was able to accept credit and debit cards but was not able to accept paper currency or coins as it was designed.

3.         The design by itself had a very institutional feel to the kiosk, similar to something that would be found in an airport, therefore was not acceptable as a free-standing element.

 

The kiosk proposal was reviewed by the Downtown Partnership Safety Task Force and by the private donor in November and rejected by both parties as being too technological for the need.  It was envisioned that the average donor would be making spur-of-the-moment coin or paper money donations as they walked down the street and that the design of the kiosk should embrace that philosophy.  The Board of Directors further discussed the purpose and philosophy of the project at their planning retreat in December, 2005, and instructed staff to draft a Request for Qualifications that could be distributed to area artists.

 

In December 2005, the Downtown Partnership Executive Director requested a sample RFQ from the Public Arts Commission and modeled the Giving Kiosk RFQ and the artist selection process after a similar process used by the Commission in their sample.

 

In January 2006, the Downtown Partnership Board of Directors and the private donor reviewed the RFQ and our board requested that the Public Arts Commission review the RFQ for artist selection content, that representatives from the local banks and the police department review it regarding the security of the kiosk content; and that parking services review it for content regarding collection of cash.  Recommendations were included in the RFQ before it was deployed.  The Public Arts Commission expressed concern regarding the budget. The Downtown Partnership shared this concern with the private donor, but together they decided to try the process with the existing budget.  

 

In late January 2006, the RFQ was deployed to the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission, the Orange County Arts Commission, the Durham Arts Council and various artists in our databases. The Partnership staff was under the impression that the Public Arts Commission and the Orange County Arts Commission would distribute the RFQ on our behalf to their artist databases and that those databases represented somewhere around 75 local area artists.  We have since learned that there was a communication mix-up somewhere between the Partnership and the Commission regarding the deployment of the document.  Orange County reserves those mass broadcasts for their own sponsored events, but did post the RFQ on their website under “Opportunities for Artists”.   It was our understanding that the Durham Arts Council would either include notification of the project in their newsletter or on their bulletin board, depending on space.  They reported back to our staff that it was posted on their bulletin board and they anticipated that 1000 individuals, artists and others, accessed that information during the one-month timeframe that it was up.

 

On March 8, 2006, the CHDP Board of Directors reviewed the one artist submission that was received.  Even though there was only one interested artist, the board was comfortable proceeding and so was the private donor.  The artist was paid $1000 to develop a concept drawing of the project.

 

On April 12, 2006 the CHDP Board of Directors reviewed the concept proposal and made some slight design modification suggestions.  The private donor reviewed the concept proposal and suggested a design modification to the roof.  In addition, the board asked that the Police Department review it for security purposes and a representative from the Police department has been working with the artist on locks and security. The board instructed Liz Parham to talk with the town about possible site locations so that it could go to the Town Council for further review.  Liz Parham met with the Town Manager and was instructed to work with Public Works on identifying possible locations.  In late April, sites were evaluated by CHDP and Public Works and a proposed site was selected.  In addition, design modifications were suggested by Public Works and those suggestions were passed along to the artist.

 

On April 26, the CHDP Board reviewed and approved the proposed site.  In addition, the board requested that the Town Council include an amendment to the current panhandling ordinance to include a ban around the Giving Kiosk, similar to language that bans panhandling near ATM machines.  The board reviewed the agencies that the CHDP Safety Task Force had recommended back in the fall as recipients of the giving kiosk funds and the board unanimously approved the following agencies as the first year recipients: Orange County Mental Health, Freedom House, Club Nova, El Futuro, IFC , and EMS.  In addition, the board recommended that CHDP serve as the manager of the kiosk and review the agencies on an annual basis to insure that the recipients are agencies that continue to address the social needs of downtown Chapel Hill.

 

On May 8, Town Council reviewed the proposal and requested additional information on the process that the Partnership used in selecting the artist, information on the forums used in obtaining public input on the design, and the Council requested further review of the design. 

 

The Partnership distributed a request for public input on the design through an article in the Chapel Hill Herald on May 16th but received no comments. The recipient agencies were each sent an e-mail offering them an opportunity to offer input on the design, but received no recommendations.  We have requested additional design input through our newsletter that was distributed on June 13. In addition, our organization has consulted with the Public Arts Commission on additional ways to solicit community input on the design.

 

In June, the Downtown Partnership Executive Director, the artist, and Public Works representative, Emily Cameron, met to further discuss the design and the proposed site location with additional suggestions made to the design concept.  The private donor was consulted after the Council meeting and was comfortable moving forward. 

 

The artist has been asked to develop detailed design plans and a detailed understanding of the mechanics of the kiosk, based on the input thus far, in an effort to bring this information back to the Town Council on June 26th for further review.  The cost for this phase of the design is $5,000.

 

The purpose of this memo is again intended to document the process that our organization used in developing the Giving Kiosk project to date.