By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net & Maya Betti, News Intern
After a proposal by Councilors Peter Dahlen and Chad Beumer in April, the Northfield City Council discussed the city’s Art Allowance of 1% for the arts at last week’s work session meeting. The art allowance is where any city construction project will dedicate 1% of its funds to public art as part of the project. Library Director and City Arts & Culture Liaison Natalie Draper stated that their are 350 of these types of programs across the country:
“And they all go about it a little bit differently, but the kind of the the percent itself was settled on because it is tied to inflation. It’s saying that we’re taking this 1%, which feels like a small number of what we’re spending on big stuff, and saying that that’s what we’re going to commit to art. And so we’re just basing it off of what we’re doing.” – Natalie Draper, Northfield Library Director at the 5/13/2025 City Council Work Session
Drapers’ report also noted the important impact that the arts have on communities, including:
- Attract tourists and visitors
- According to a recent survey by Americans for the Arts, half of people with college degrees (49 percent) and a majority of Millennials (52 percent) and Gen Xers (54 percent) say they would strongly consider whether a community is rich in the arts when deciding where to locate for a job.
You can read Draper’s full report here
Dahlen and Beumer had proposed narrowing the scope of the art allowance, with Dahlen advocating for fewer projects meeting the ordinance’s criteria. Beumer also expressed concerns with the allowance’s amount, especially considering the high cost of recent capital projects like the Ice Arena and the proposed water treatment plant:
“My main concern is the dollar amounts that get attached to projects such as the water treatment plant.” – Chad Beumer, Northfield City Councilor at the 5/13/2025 City Council Work Session
In the case of the Ice Arena, the city has allocated $194,000 for the Art Allowance.
While much of the council expressed support for the Art Allowance, there was an openness to placing a cap on large capital projects, with Councilor Davin Sokup thanking Beumer and Dahlen for bringing the item forward for discussion:
“I think it’s really important to have the 1% for the Arts Ordinance. I do think it’s worth discussing like a floor and a ceiling, I mean to me, this really came up because of the water treatment plant, and it was like is there even capacity to add $600,000 to the arts fund.” – Davin Sokup, Northfield City Councilor at the 5/13/2025 City Council Work Session
Sokup stated that he would be interested in a cap of around $400,000 to $500,000.
Councilor Kathleen Holmes stated that if every planned project in the next 5 years were approved, that would only result in about $1 million being invested in public art, and that is an important investment into the community, especially considering art funding at the federal level:
“When we look at wanting to save things here and there, we just voted on something that was really big and if we wanted to save a lot of money, we wouldn’t have voted on that. We feel like it’s important it passed. I supported it and I think that we have to look at where we are trying to go, what we are trying to cut. And what are the impacts going to be? And I feel like the impact will be felt deeply within our arts community. – Kathleen Holmes, Northfield City Councilor at the 5/13/2025 City Council Work Session
Beumer stated that even though he was interested in rewording the ordinance, he still supported the program:
“It’s not anything that I would like to see go away, because I’m smart enough to understand the benefits to it and in the community that we live in now.” – Chad Beumer, Northfield City Councilor
Considering the benefits, Community Development Director Jake Riley noted that the arts is of economic importance to Northfield:
“And artists are workers. They make a living doing art. There’s an entire store… there are multiple stores in town that are dedicated to artistic endeavors, right? Northfield Yarn, one could argue the bookstore, right? The folks at all those other creative places that offer things for artists to do. The entire Northfield Arts Guild supports Multiple artists. The entirety of Riverwalk market fair is artist-driven.” – Jake Riley, Northfield Community Development Director at the 5/13/2025 City Council Work Session
No action was taken by the council last week. Any changes will come up for a vote later this summer.
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