Public Hearing on Proposed Light-Pole Sculptures on San Pablo Avenue

A public hearing will be held at City Hall Thursday night on what would be El Cerrito's most prominent installation of public art – abstract copper sculptures suspended on a dozen streetlight poles along San Pablo Avenue.

The fate of the long-planned $100,000 project, now being presented by the artists in a revised form after their first proposal was rejected, is being decided by the El Cerrito Arts and Culture Commission, which may take a vote on the plan following the 7:30 p.m. hearing.

Artists Saori Ide and Jonathan Russell, a wife-husband team from Berkeley, were awarded a $100,000 commission in an open competition sponsored by the city to design and install the public art component of the multi-year San Pablo Avenue Streetscape Project. The $6.6-million streetscape project is essentially complete except for the art, which has been delayed by disagreement over what direction it would take.

The funding results from the city's Art in Public Places Ordinance, adopted by the City Council in 2005, requiring that new projects costing $250,000 or more devote at least one percent of the development costs to public art. It is Chapter 13.50 in the city's Municipal Code.

The artists' first proposal – colorful icons of people and objects on 50 streetlight poles along San Pablo – was rejected earlier this year by the commission, which said it wanted to see designs that are abstract and copper.

The abstract copper forms would be mounted on streetlight poles 20 feet above the sidewalk and move with the wind. They would be placed inside C-shaped stainless-steel frames that would be 4-1/2 feet in diameter. The steel frames are designed to echo the relatively new bike racks that were installed as part of the San Pablo Avenue Streetscape Project.