Syracuse Public Art Commission refines mission and schedules March public forum

The Syracuse Public Art Commission spent a large portion of its meeting on a facilitated workshop to revise its mission and vision and to plan public outreach, agreeing to hold a public engagement forum in March and to prepare outreach materials and an email to the commission's artist registry.

Commission Chair Tina Zagiva, the commission's chair, opened the discussion and asked members to keep side conversations limited and to focus on meeting action items. The group then worked with a facilitator, Rosemarie (Facilitator), who led an exercise to surface what the commission does, why it does it, and whom it serves. Commissioners and attendees identified three priority audience groups — artists/self, community (neighbors/residents/families) and future generations — and pulled out action words and emotional keywords to inform messaging.

The workshop produced several concrete next steps. Commissioners agreed to hold the public input session at the commission’s regular March meeting rather than a February special session to allow more time for planning and outreach. The commission asked staff to compile the workshop notes, develop a flyer and email template, distribute invites to arts organizations and the artist registry, and pursue media outreach for the March forum. Chair Tina Zagiva also said she has reached out to Ty Marshall, the executive director of the Homer Center for the Arts, who has expressed interest in advising or helping facilitate the public conversation.

Commissioners and staff flagged immediate administrative actions: collection of updated headshots and short bios for the commission website (staff: Anne Cofer), consolidation of the workshop responses into a single document for review, and the development of a press/marketing plan tied to the March forum. Anne Cofer, Art Coordinator for the City of Syracuse, confirmed staff will circulate the draft materials for comment and that Parks staff can provide logistics support if the forum is a Parks-hosted event.

Facilitator Rosemarie summarized the results to the group: “In less than an hour, you have identified keywords, audiences and edits that will form the basis of a mission and vision you can refine further,” and she said she would compile the worksheets and draft options for the commission to review.

Votes and formal actions taken during the meeting were limited to routine procedural items (see “Votes at a glance”).