AMHERST — Being enacted for the first time during construction of the new elementary school, Amherst’s Percent for Art program will continue to bring in around $250,000 for a public art installation, after members of the Town Council rejected cutting this spending, citing the importance of promoting public art in the face of hostility from the White House.

“We shouldn’t back away from our commitment to the arts,” District 3 Councilor George Ryan said during Monday’s meeting, observing that public art shouldn’t be seen as a frill or an extra.

“I don’t think I need to remind anyone of what’s happening on the national level with arts, and the attack that is taking place,” Ryan said.

The nearly $100 million school building project is expected to generate $250,000 for the Percent for Art, based on the town bylaw that requires half-a-percent of the town’s costs for any school or town building projects priced at $1 million or more to go toward physical art. The town’s borrowing costs are $50 million.

Councilors Monday twice rejected motions, first to reduce the amount to the program to $100,000, first proposed by District 1 Councilor Cathy Schoen at a meeting in March, and then to cap Percent for Art spending at $200,000.

In the vote to cap spending at $200,000, councilors were deadlocked, with Ryan and At Large Councilors Mandi Jo Hanneke and Andy Steinberg and District 2 Councilors Lynn Griesemer and Pat DeAngelis voting against. Those in support were District 5 Councilor Bob Hegner, who made the motion, At Large Councilor Ellisha Walker, Schoen, District 3 Councilor Hala Heather Lord and District 4 Councilor Pam Rooney. District 1 Councilor Ndifreke Ette, District 3 Councilor Jennifer Taub and District 5 Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier were absent.

Schoen’s motion was only supported by Rooney, with all other present councilors voting against, except Walker, who abstained.

When the Town Council approved the Percent for Art in 2020, there was a provision to lower or eliminate a public art component of municipal projects by majority vote. In addition, the art could be on an adjacent site.

Hegner said he is skeptical of the need for a $250,000 budget. “We don’t need so much money to get good artwork placed in a building,” Hegner said.

In limiting to $100,000, Schoen said town officials are asking a lot of taxpayers and need to understand the stress they are under. “I think the optics of this are very important,” Schoen said.

Ryan, though, estimated that he would making a $532 yearly contribution to the school project over 30 years, while only $2.66 per year would go toward the public art.

Hanneke said any savings realized can’t go to support school or potholes, and the difference between $200,00 and $250,000 is negligible.

“53 cents per taxpayer,” Hanneke said. “53 cents.”

DeAngelis said it is important to stand on principle and firm on decisions, noting there are “lot of grinches in the community” and resistance to projects costs time and money.

She also critiqued the idea of optics.

“To try to make yourself look better to your constituents?” DeAngelis said. “You’re going to fail on a commitment this town made to art.”

Before the vote, members of the Public Art Commission made a presentation. Dara Barrois/Dixon said the vote would be whether the town honors the full amount the bylaw calls for in its first case and how art is meaningful to civic life, and counters the punishment on public art being meted out by the federal government.

“It’s a sum representing that art embodies an honorable, justifiable and necessary role to public life,” Barrois/Dixon said. “Shapes, materials, colors, eye-opening, mind-opening arts serve to enhance the lives of audiences and makers equally.”

Commission member Lynne Thompson outlined spots where the art might go at the new school, including a garden and an entranceway, and commissioner Lori Friedman explained how $250,000 would pay for a project manager to shepherd the project, with about half the cost for fabrication and installation. Cambridge has done elaborate sculptures, she said.

Commission Chairman Tom Warger said Percent for Art is designed to create something special and with a high level of quality, in the first instance of taxpayers funding public art, which in the past always has been paid for with grants and donations.

“Public art has a lasting impact on students and the entire community,” Warger said. “We are thinking in terms of generations, we are talking about thousands of students and people who come for various events and functions within the school.”

The Percent for Art bylaw was originally approved by Town Meeting in spring 2017, championed by then Public Art Commission Chairman Eric Broudy, who died in January 2024. At the time, Amherst joined Cambridge as the only communities with such a requirement, though that bylaw never got approvals needed from the state Legislature to be enacted.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.