Article published Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Funding may keep Sylvania banners flying By DAVID PATCH BLADE STAFF WRITER
Banners that the Sylvania Arts Commission has placed on 150 lampposts could become a regular decorative feature in the city, with designs changed several times per year, if the commission can arrange funding for them.
A budget-conscious city council early this month balked at footing the entire bill. During a follow-up committee meeting last week, arts commission members agreed to seek sponsorships to cover at least part of the cost.
"It's obviously a great project," councilman Todd Milner said during the streets committee meeting Nov. 20 that he had received "a lot of great comments" about the three banner designs now displayed in downtown Sylvania.
But Mr. Milner was one of several council members who indicated that while the arts commission's $13,000 cost estimate for four new banners during 2010 - two designs to be displayed starting mid-spring and two more for introduction in late summer or early fall - was not huge, it would send a problematic message if the city were to foot the entire bill.
"We have got to tighten our belts, because every household is tightening their belt," he said.
"I'm going to have a hard time explaining this to some of my taxpayers," agreed Mark Luetke, who urged arts commission representatives at the meeting to solicit potential sponsors before council's finance committee, which earlier Friday morning took a first look at the city's proposed 2010 budget, reconvenes Dec. 7.
Kate Conway, the arts commission's vice president, said that while initial efforts to secure banner sponsorships from Sylvania's downtown business community were unsuccessful, a "small and tasteful" logo for a major sponsor or two could easily be worked into the banner campaign.
But Mr. Luetke also cautioned that "our companies are facing the same economic realities we are," so sponsorships may not be an easy sell.
The committee later recommended full council approval for the arts commission to establish a five-member panel to oversee the banner program, with representation from the Sylvania Area Chamber of Commerce, downtown merchants, the arts commission, city council, and the city administration. Committee members also encouraged Sherri Miller, the arts commission's president, to put out a "call for artists" to create candidate designs for the Spring 2010 banners.
"Thousands of towns, small and large, are using banners to brand themselves," Ms. Conway explained earlier in the discussion. Not only do such banner promote positive images of a community, she said, they sometimes become collector's items or platforms for merchandising, such as poster or clothing sales.
While the current display includes three different designs, the arts commission proposed just two for each of two new-banner cycles during 2010 as a cost-cutting measure.
Continuing with three designs would bump the cost up to $15,600, while doing just one would cut it further, to $9,714, but Ms. Conway said reducing to just a single design would significantly dampen the campaign's visual appeal.
During the preceding finance committee meeting, finance director Scott Smith presented a $27.6 million budget, excluding capital projects, for 2010. The spending proposal is 4.24 percent higher than the 2009 budget, while revenue is forecast to increase by just 1.16 percent, with the overall proposal requiring a $2.1 million draw-down of city reserves.
While Mr. Smith said he had already made a considerable effort to trim the spending request down to bare essentials, Mr. Milner said he was "not comfortable" with spending so much of Sylvania's reserves, and Mr. Luetke asked Mr. Smith to see how much more might be cut without jeopardizing city services.
"Our citizens don't want us to fake a business-as-usual approach to the budget" under current economic circumstances, Mr. Luetke said.
"It's going to be a very difficult year. There are way, way too many people unemployed," Mr. Milner said. "We need to go bare bones and look for better times."
Council president Keith Haddad cautioned, however, against cutting street maintenance or similar projects for which the bidding climate is favorable now.
"With as low as we're getting these bids in, I'd hate to defer any projects when we're going to pay more for them in the future," Mr. Haddad said. Permanent Link
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