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REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION Date: February 27, 2023 Item No.: 5.b Department Approval City Manager Approval Item Description:Accept Donation of Public Art Piece to the Harriet Alexander Nature Center 1 B ACKGROUND 2 Over the years the City of Roseville has received many donations from citizens, program participants 3 and affiliated groups. These gifts have been in the form of both materials and monies. When staff is 4 notified of a potential donation, they first make a determination of whether to recommend acceptance 5 based on the suitability of the item for the city. An acceptance request is then forwarded to the City 6 Council. 7 In recent months, staff have been made aware of one such potential substantial donation. Long-time 8 Harriet Alexander Nature Center (HANC) volunteers John and Kris Robertson-Smith, working with 9 the Friends of Roseville Parks, have expressed interest in making a donation of a public art piece to 10 HANC grounds of up to $70,000 in value. 11 The Robertson-Smiths are proposing to commission mosaic artist Lori Greene to design and 12 construct a public art piece on the grounds of the Nature Center with the explicit goal of adding 13 beauty to HANC and driving new traffic to the space. Ms. Greene is a widely respected community 14 and public artist who has successfully completed a number of significant public art projects in the 15 Twin Cities area including works for the City of St. Louis Park, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, a 16 number of parks in the area, and a project with the Roseville Library. Ms. Greene brings a strong 17 focus on public engagement and community involvement to her work (Attachment A). 18 Ms. Greene is tentatively proposing the installation of three cairns near the Nature Center. Sample 19 cairns that Ms. Greene has created in other communities can be found in Attachment B. However, 20 because Ms. Greene has not yet been hired to complete the work or completed any engagement for 21 the project, any concepts are extremely preliminary. 22 It should be noted that the City of Roseville does not currently have a Public Art Master Plan, so 23 decisions about public art are largely made by staff on a case by case basis. One recent example of a 24 similar decisionis the acceptance of three roses as part of the Roseville In Bloom program in 2021. 25 There are still many details to be worked out on this potential project, but many of them cannot be 26 addressed until the City accepts the donation and Ms. Greene’s services are secured to begin her 27 process. 28 Ms. Greene attended the Parks and Recreation Commission on February 7, 2023 (Attachment D)to Page 1 of 2