[MSN] US, Miami. Dade art program audited: It's not pretty

[MSN]

Dade art program audited: It's not pretty
BY DANIEL CHANG
For nearly a decade, passengers walking through Concourse A at Miami International Airport were charmed by artist Christopher Janney's Harmonic Runway, a corridor of colored glass radiating light and emitting the sounds of croaking frogs and melodic flutes.

The work was a signature piece of Miami-Dade's vaunted Art in Public Places program -- until it was removed and destroyed in 2004 to make way for development of the airport's North Terminal.

Now, Harmonic Runway is a glaring symbol of the program's deep failures, according to a county audit that echoes the findings of a Miami Herald examination in September and details further problems with the publicly funded program.

The handling of Janney's work is one in a series of problems the county audit reveals about the program, funded by a 1.5 percent tax on construction of public buildings such as courthouses, airport terminals and libraries.

''It is an incredibly good, important, valued program that has national recognition,'' said Miami-Dade Commissioner Sally Heyman, who called for the public art audit in April 2007. ``But it was fraught with problems.''

Harmonic Runway debuted with an expensive celebration for the new concourse in summer 1995. The work was featured in two films, and network TV interviewed Janney.

After it was removed -- without proper approval and in violation of county policy, the audit states -- more problems were revealed. County records show Janney threatened to sue in October 2002, when officials first told him of their plans.

NO-BID DEAL
Persuaded by the artist's argument and eager to recreate the success of his earlier work, the 15-member Art in Public Places Trust, which oversees the program, later awarded Janney a commission worth $900,000 as ''consolation,'' the audit states.

But Janney had no legal right to stop the removal of Harmonic Runway, the audit states, and the APP Trust violated county policy by awarding him a second contract in 2004 without giving other artists a chance to compete for the commission.

What's more, the audit states, the APP Trust paid Janney $24,000 in 2002 and 2003 to develop a plan to remove Harmonic Runway and salvage its parts.

But Janney's plan was to spend $337,000 to remove Harmonic Runway. The original commission cost $400,000. So the APP Trust voted instead to spend an additional $31,000 to have the airport remove it.

Cindi Nash, chairwoman of the APP Trust, defended the panel's actions. The work had to be removed because of construction of the North Terminal, Nash said. Janney's noncompetitive contract was in recognition of his talent, she said. ''A competitive bid for us is not money,'' Nash said. ``A competitive bid for us is talent. He has phenomenal talent.''

For his part, Janney said in an e-mail that during discussions with county officials he invoked his rights to protect the integrity of Harmonic Runway under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990.

''We came to an agreement,'' Janney wrote, ``that the work could be removed as long as a new work was commissioned.''

Letters between Janney's attorneys and county officials confirm an agreement was reached.

''I want to take this opportunity to restate our strong intention and desire to re-commission you to create a new artwork project at Miami International Airport,'' Ivan Rodriguez, public art director from 2000 to 2007, stated in a letter to Janney dated Nov. 8, 2002.

Ivan Rodriguez did not respond to messages left with his wife, Vivian Donnell Rodriguez, who held the position from 1991 to 2000.

County auditors have asked for an investigation into the removal of Harmonic Runway and the commissioning of Janney for the second project, Harmonic Blues.

Commissioner Heyman said she wants Harmonic Blues stopped, but it is unclear whether the contract can be rescinded. Although Janney has yet to complete the work, he has been paid $138,000 to date, records show.

Heyman said she is committed to the public art program. ``But we need to get control of it, and this audit just totally solidified that: One, we haven't had control of it; and two, there was gross negligence. . . . I think some of it borders on criminal.''

Among problems first reported by The Miami Herald and reaffirmed by county auditors, who spent nearly a year investigating the program:

• Shoddy record keeping that overcounted and undervalued the collection, which has 640 works valued at $28.2 million. APP records counted 704 items valued at $16.3 million.

• Eighty-seven items, worth an estimated $95,000, presumed lost or stolen.

• Improper removal and destruction of works in the collection.

• Lack of maintenance for existing works.

• Uncollected funds from eligible public construction projects.

Broward County's public art program, by comparison, reported losing none of its 200-plus works and dedicates a portion of its budget to maintenance.

Miami-Dade arts leaders say they have been working on solutions since October, when Michael Spring, director of the county's Department of Cultural Affairs, assumed control of the public art program.

RECOVERY PLAN
Spring unveiled a recovery plan in January that included, among other things, budgeting for maintenance of artworks, establishing formal procedures for removing works from the collection and ensuring that the program receives its share of public construction dollars.

''It demonstrates we're ahead of this,'' Spring said of the recovery plan. ``The big idea is that the collection is now grown . . . and we need to transition from commissioning artworks to caring for artworks.''

Care of the collection is a central theme of the audit.

In preparing their report, auditors selected 175 artworks for review and confirmed the existence of 166. Only 147 were at the locations specified in APP records. What's more, the audit stated that ``46 of 193 observed pieces were visibly damaged or deteriorated.''

The audit recommends that administrators dedicate some of the program's $3.6 million in funds for maintenance. Past directors have decried the lack of funds in the program to maintain the works, but the audit found that to be a specious argument.

''APP cited a lack of funding as contributing to maintenance neglect,'' the audit reads. ``However, we saw no documented efforts to obtain funding.''

Elsewhere, the audit found that some public building projects have shortchanged the public art program while others have been delinquent. The audit attributes these failures to past public art administrators and county staff, all the way up to the county manager's office.

Public art coffers have failed to collect as much as $575,000 in fees from eligible public construction since 2000, the audit states. But the committee appointed by the county manager to review new construction projects and their eligibility for public art funds hasn't met in recent years, the audit states.

What's more, the audit states, the county's aviation department has been particularly lax about public art requirements.

The aviation department, mostly through airport construction projects, has generated 69 percent, or $24.1 million, of the $35.2 million contributed to public art since 1997, the audit states.

But compliance with the public art requirement has been handled by aviation department managers working with ''little or no high-level oversight or review,'' the audit states. ``We found in many instances [public art] calculations were based inappropriately on construction estimates, rather than actual award amounts and that site work costs were improperly excluded.''

Members of the APP Trust, who met Feb. 12, said they received the audit with some apprehension about its findings, but were encouraged that they've already begun to address many of the audit's concerns.

''I didn't think it was that accurate,'' said Nash, the APP Trust chair. ``On the whole, the things that they found wrong . . . we are fixing.''

Penny Lambeth, newly appointed to the APP Trust by County Commissioner Dennis Moss, said she agreed with the report's findings.

''I thought the report was excellent,'' Lambeth said. ``It addressed a lot of the issues that had been brought up.''

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