Syracuse Public Arts Commission Meeting Summary - March 31, 2026
Syracuse Public Arts Commission Meeting Summary - March 31, 2026
The Syracuse Public Arts Commission met on March 31, 2026, at approximately 5:03 PM, chaired by Benny Guzman. The meeting began with a lack of quorum (one commissioner short), preventing official votes. Commissioners present: Lisa Lambert, Maggie Levis, Manuel Carter, Chris Abbott. The session focused on discussion of administrative and strategic items, including the public art coordinator position, outreach events, commission vacancies, and an executive session on open meeting law. No public comments were received.
Consent Calendar
- Minutes from January 13, 2026: Reviewed but not approved due to lack of quorum. A typo ("September 9th") was noted and will be corrected before approval at a future meeting with quorum.
Discussion Items
- Public Art Coordinator Position: Chair Guzman reported ongoing discussions with Shaisha (Parks) and Eric Ennis (Mayor's economic development team) to revamp the position's responsibilities. The original posting did not mention parks, despite the role being housed under Parks & Rec. The position has been vacant since Anne resigned in August 2025 (originally contracted July 2024). Guzman will request the commission review the job description before posting.
- District Art Show (May 2, 2026): Commissioner Maggie Levis suggested the commission give special awards to student artists. Chair Guzman expressed support for commission presence but noted legal uncertainty about formal recognition on behalf of the city. The event is at Dr. King Elementary School, 10 AM–12 PM, coinciding with Makers Fair and Parks Day.
- SPAC Website: The website is 95% complete; missing content includes artist features, project listings, and the public art registry. Commissioner Chris Abbott offered to help generate content.
- Social Media: Chair Guzman noted limited bandwidth and requested volunteers for training to manage the city social media account. Commissioner Levis volunteered.
- Commission Vacancies: Four positions are available (including Blondine's resignation and expiring terms for Elias and Devana). Nominees must live within Syracuse city limits. Chair Guzman noted Rebecca as a potential candidate, but no vote could occur without quorum.
- Vice Chair and Secretary: A vice chair will be elected at the next meeting with quorum. The secretary position (currently held by Takara) may be revisited due to confusion about the role.
- Ordinance Review: Commissioner Lambert offered to convert the PDF ordinance into a Word document for individual review, avoiding online collaboration due to open meeting law concerns.
Key Outcomes
- Executive Session: The commission adjourned to an executive session at 5:33 PM to discuss open meeting law and legal advice. A motion was made and seconded (Manuel Carter) to enter executive session.
- Next Steps: Chair Guzman will follow up with Shaisha and Eric Ennis on the coordinator position, request commission input on the job description, and work to fill vacancies. The next regular meeting will aim for quorum to approve minutes, elect vice chair, and formalize appointments.
Meeting Transcript
I mean the roads are garbage. So this will also just be probably a shorter meeting. Um we don't have anything really in terms of business to attend to more discussion. So in order to kind of have it. Yes, thank you so much. When the time's right. Yep, welcome. Thank you. You also are bad, and I know a few people said they were coming. Yeah, we'll start at like five three morning. Just out of respect for people's time. Copies of this share. Oh, okay. Oh, you have it. Very interesting. One of my colleagues thing. Oh, nice. I didn't fashion. That's fine. We're citizens we review stuff. I mean, you know what I mean? It's not totally inaccurate. There you go. So yes, uh, just to out of respect for everybody's time, I will officially call this meeting to order. Uh my name is Benny Guzman. I am the key chair of the public arts commission. Uh before I have the rest of the commissioners and our representative from Parks introduce themselves. Um, one, we are one person short of quorum. I do think they might be coming today, uh, but that may prevent us from actually um doing any official business. Uh what we but on top of that, we also really don't have much business to attend to besides discussion um and some other things that again, if we have someone kind of for quorum, we might get them uh address. Uh additionally, too. Uh we do have an executive session uh this evening about open meeting law and discussion with legal. Uh, and in order to respect everybody's time for the first part, I would like to try to keep it to about half an hour so that we have half an hour dedicated to that. Um I don't like meetings for to go over an hour unless they absolutely have to, um, respecting everybody's time here. Uh, but that doesn't mean that we can't have some discussion uh based on our agenda and based on some of the stuff that um uh we just need to discuss as a commission. Um also additionally too, I am recording audio uh on my phone just for kind of my purposes for uh meeting minutes for the next session that we are attending. Um and this also is being video recorded uh via live stream through the YouTube. Um yeah, I think that's all the introduction stuff. So what I'll do is I'll just have all the commissioners uh and everybody on the panel um introduce themselves. Lisa Lambert. I'm a Raider. Maggie Levis. Manuel Carter. Uh Chris Abbott. Okay. Perfect. Um so uh we do have minutes from our last meeting in front of us. Um we cannot vote to approve them, but if we can at least just take a quick minute to look over them to see if there's any major issues. Um please again just let me know. We can mark that down, and then when we again, if we do have quorum tonight, we'll vote on it to approve it, or we'll wait till the next session uh to approve it.
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