Notes for the Day #3: Defending Flint's Rock.

EVENT

In response to this story: The Rock under attack again.

I have written the following to SUE SMITH, Director of Education of Training at Keep America Beautiful. Her email is sue@preventlitter.org.

I will also be sending off letters to HILLARY CLINTON, a supporter of Keep America Beautiful, as well as STEVE WALL of the City Nuisance Task Force and KAY KELLY of the Kearsley Park project.

---

Dear Ms. Smith,

My name is Connor Coyne and I am a former resident of Flint, Michigan, and a former painter of the landmark known as "the Rock." I was dismayed to read your statements in last Sunday's Flint Journal in which you rhetorically equated the painting of the Rock with graffiti, vandalism, and gang tags. You are right in that as a publicly maintained site, the Rock is owned by all of us. But, it seems, you neglected to inform your audience that the Rock has a well-established history that includes official sanctioning of artwork.

In 2004, thirty years of work (mainly birthday wishes and get well requests, though I understand by your argument content is immaterial) were stripped away at the order of Mayor Don Williamson. He put up signs warning of $1000 fines for painting the Rock.

Now it is easy to point out that the signs deterred everyone except for gang taggers who continued to hit the rock indiscriminately.

It is easy to point out that the expense the city incurred (again, public funds) in this massive cleanup obviously far exceeded a more routine cleanup of spillover graffiti.

It is easy to point out that there is absolutely no distinction in cost or effort in repairing graffiti surrounding an officially sanctioned space and "repairing" the space itself.

But here is the easiest of all: your argument presupposes that public art in an informal setting can only be considered vandalism or a public nuisance. In the present case, within days of the mayor's action, city residents responded with letters to the editor, at city council meetings, and at all levels of community governance. The Flint Journal covered this extensively. In the end, the outcry was so great the the mayor removed the signs and began offering a $1000 reward for the best painting.

Flint, Michigan is a city confronted by many grave issues: poverty, crime, unemployment, a crumbling infrastructure, and a school district losing funding to the tune of one thousand students a year. And I am both angry and upset that you would direct Flint's limited energy and resources back to a issue that has not only been resolved within the community, but whose resolution has been the result of rigorous public debate. You are right that the Rock is public property.

The public has decided that the Rock should be a work of art.

I hope that you will respect that.

Sincerely,

Connor Coyne

END OF POST.