Explanation
BACKGROUND: This ordinance authorizes the Director of the Department of Development to accept and execute a private grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in an amount up to $2,000,000.00 under their “Monuments Project” program for the City’s Reimagining Columbus project and authorizes the appropriation of up to $2,000,000.00 for personnel costs and a professional services contract upon the receipt of the grant funds.
Launched in 2020, the Monuments Project is a five-year, $250 million commitment by the Mellon Foundation to transform the nation’s commemorative landscape by supporting public projects that more completely and accurately represent the multiplicity and complexity of American stories. The Monuments Project builds on the Mellon Foundation’s efforts to express, elevate, and preserve the stories of those who have often been denied historical recognition and explores a more complete telling of who we are as a nation.
Through the Department of Development, the City applied for a grant to engage the community and generate discussion about the city’s namesake, Christopher Columbus, and to assess the future disposition of the Christopher Columbus statue that was created by Edoardo Alfieri and gifted to the City of Columbus by its Sister City of Genoa, Italy in 1955. Funding through the Monuments Project would enable the City of Columbus to 1) methodically and inclusively host conversations to understand what Columbus residents value most, and how the city’s future symbology and public art landscape can communicate shared values and aspirations, 2) provide the public with opportunities to collaboratively ideate on the future disposition of the Christopher Columbus statue, and with requisite community buy-in, design a new space that allows the public to understand and physically interact with difficult history, and 3) create a replicable model for dealing with difficult topics within the community and pilot new community engagement methodo...
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