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City Of Chico To Model Art Commission After Orland's System

City of Chico

Impassioned appeals appeared to compel Chico’s city council to keep its Art Commission alive last night, if only on paper.

Following the meeting, a commissioner noted that the body hasn’t weighed any new public art since his term began—there hasn’t been any money.

Those facts aren’t likely to change soon.

Though budgets aren’t as tight, Chico is hardly flush with cash. While the commissioners aren’t paid, complying with state open meeting laws and other regulations are a financial burden leaders are unwilling to shoulder.

After considering reassigning the commission’s work to a regional nonprofit group, the council instead opted by a 4-3 vote to keep the commission on the city’s flow chart, adopting the structure of a similar committee in Orland. There, the unpaid commissioners do work assigned in Chico to a city employee. 

“The primary concern from the council that I hear is and from staff is staff time, staff expenditure, city resource expenditure,” Councilman Randall Stone said. “And this seems to reduce that down to virtually nil.”

Officials will seek a legal opinion on scaling up Orland’s system and provide more details before the issue returns to the council.

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