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CONSIDERATION OF ADOPTION, REJECTION, AMENDMENT AND/OR POSTPONEMENT OF RESOLUTION R-2021-116: A RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, ENDORSING AN APPLICATION TO BE SUBMITTED BY THE CITY OF NORMAN AND THE NORMAN ARTS COUNCIL FOR A BLOOMBERG PHILANTHROPIES ASPHALT ART INITIATIVE GRANT.
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BACKGROUND: On March 4, 2021, Mayor Clark was contacted by the Chief Executive Officer for Bloomberg Philanthropies and was invited to submit an application for the Bloomberg Philanthropies Asphalt Art Initiative Grant for 2021. The Bloomberg Philanthropies intends to award as many as twenty grants to U.S. cities of up to $25,000 each. The deadline for the grant application submittal is April 30, 2021.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies' Asphalt Art Initiative responds to the growing number of cities around the world embracing art as an effective and relatively low-cost strategy to activate their streets. While cities incorporate art into public spaces in a variety of ways, the focus of this initiative is what they term asphalt art. These are visual interventions on roadways (intersections and crosswalks), pedestrian spaces (plazas and sidewalks), and vertical infrastructure (utility boxes, traffic barriers and underpasses).
The Asphalt Art Initiative grant program is supporting pilot projects in U.S. cities to demonstrate the impact of asphalt art projects and to encourage cities to develop their own processes for implementing these low-cost activations effectively. Sixteen winning cities were announced in June 2020, and projects will be installed in 2020 and 2021. Applications are currently open for the next round of applications. Some examples of last year's projects can be seen at https://asphaltart.bloomberg.org.
DISCUSSION: Upon receipt of the e-mail, Mayor Clark then reached out to Ms. Erinn Gavaghan, Executive Director of the Norman Arts Council, to inform her about the opportunity for a grant application for on-street public art. Thi...
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