Lebanon
By working together, municipal staff and art groups believe they can create more vibrant neighborhoods that would draw new visitors to Lebanon.
But achieving that vision will require a more coordinated effort and better lines of communication, according to a group of volunteers who just wrapped up a study of the city’s cultural assets.
“At the end of the day, we believe that the city can and should be doing more to support the work of our outstanding arts and cultural organizations, and that by doing so would result in an increase in social and economic activity,” said Sherry Fiore, a member of the city’s Arts and Culture Task Force, during Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
Unlike the task force, which met for six months, the new commission would be a permanent arm of the city charged with coordinating events and exploring how Lebanon’s art and business interests intersect, Fiore explained in an audio recording of the meeting.
It’s makeup would be similar the nine-member task force, though, with members including city residents, cultural groups and business people.
A long-term approach to promoting art is needed largely because the issues facing Lebanon are too big to tackle in just a few months, said Mayor Sue Prentiss, a member of the task force.
The City Council authorized the volunteer group this spring to identify Lebanon’s artistic assets, determine whether an arts district would benefit the community and study the city’s role in furthering cultural opportunity.
The group met in several locations — including Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the historic Dana House and the Upper Valley Music Center — and heard from other communities who were successful expanding cultural opportunities.
And while the task force ultimately created an inventory of cultural institutions and came to the conclusion that a single arts district might not benefit both sides of the city, members didn’t have enough time or resources to address some larger concerns, Prentiss said.
“It a big apple and we got a big bite out but there’s a lot more work to do,” she told the Council.
“I never thought it would be easy, but there’s just so much that we couldn’t get through all of it,” Prentiss added. “There is so much more to do and we know that we need to create this permanent structure in the city to house interests.”
Councilors agreed and voted unanimously to begin drafting rules for the new commission, a move that was met by approval from several cultural groups, such as the Lebanon Opera House.
It was talks between the Opera House, Upper Valley Music Center and AVA Gallery and Art Center that initially got Lebanon discussing ways to promote the city’s cultural amenities. While the groups collaborated on their own to promote the arts scene, they concluded that municipal expertise is needed to get more stakeholders to the table.
“There’s a clear path to a lot more economic activity by (creating the commission),” commercial real estate agent Chip Brown told the Council.
“I think there’s a lot of ways to leverage those that are involved with the arts and companies that are here to invest in the arts and create a lot of activity from that,” said Brown, who was also on the task force.
Councilors applauded the task force’s work but also asked whether art could become more present in West Lebanon.
Assistant Mayor Tim McNamara said he hopes the commission might again restart talks with the school district to hold more events in the former Seminary Hill School.
There’s a large auditorium there that is almost never used by the community, he said.
“It would be a great resource for the entire city but also for downtown West Lebanon,” he said.
The City Council is expected to continue discussing the arts commission at its Dec. 5 meeting at City Hall.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.