Keep up the great reporting Jorge and staff. Each week I find the Web page improved. Good work. Good city. Bravo.

Eric Faber

Comments Regarding:
Juggling Interests: An Inside Look at the New Street Performers Ordinance
8/10/99

Thank-you for taking the time to look into the Street Performer issue and
report in such a way that the individual's points speak for themselves.

Any change in the rules is difficult to adjust too. But the repetitive
pattern of complaints, new laws, injunctions against the law, stayed
enforcement, complaints, new laws,......etc., had to come to an end, or
the performers - being not as organized or monied - would be eventually
crushed.

This means that the Ordinance needs to reflect an underlying solution to
the issues causing the complaints. Any lasting solution means change and
compromise.

There is no war to be fought here with the businesses or City. These
areas are and will be multiple use environments - their continued
viability will be based on this fact. But co-existence by dissimilar
interests (business/performer/resident) cries out for compromise.

In my opinion the City has bent over backwards to consider performer
issues. They have made extensive staff and budgetary commitments as well
as entered into open and spirited debate at all levels, to find good
ideas.

There is currently, much comment on rotation, so let me address that
issue for a moment.

This is the most obvious aspect of the ordinance, to many. The concept
goes back to preschool, yet it is currently the rage at the highest
levels of our universities.

The question is:
How do -MANY- people share a limited community resource?

In a completely unregulated environment, the biggest and baddest and
strongest will dominate as much of the resource as they can hold to the
detriment of the weaker members. This is fine as long as you have an
unlimited resource AND the resource itself doesn't degrade by use.

A good example is commercial fishing. At a certain point over-use wipes
out the fish and everybody goes out of business. By developing a plan for
reasonable, shared usage, no one expands to to point where they threaten
the viability of the community. This is cutting edge stuff, as we as
humans learn to live with a huge population on a limited planet. There
are whole new ways of being, which need to be embraced.

The previous first-come-first-served performer system allowed individuals
to dominate locations all day. This lead to a rush for spots early in the
day and forced those who came late out of the picture. No one would give
up locations, because they knew they would not find another.

The effect this had on the stores was to place a - sometimes - irritating
performer in front of their business all day. Can you imagine? That is
the limit to the performer environment. If the community complaints
exceed performer benefit, ALL performers lose, big time....!

The City had a plan around New Years to force performer movement. It was
called "spots and lottery." For many reasons this has caused the death of
performance in other areas and all performers rose up against it. The
City compromised when the performers proposed a universal rotation
system, which solved many of the City's core issues.

Something had to give and Rotation was the better choice for the
performers.

Some individuals have backed away from their commitment to this
compromise and this has left the City feeling a little burnt. The old
Ordinance had a forced rotation every ONE HOUR of 100 ft, on Fri. and
Sat. nights (the good nights) - the new ordinance allows TWO HOURS on a
location and a move of 120ft - all week.

To sweeten the deal for the performers, the City threw in many
compromises based on the bedrock of universal rotation. The 5 item art
vending, curfew extensions, reduction of distances from fixed objects and
each other, size of displays and props, the commitment to hire a
monitor,......etc. were all influenced by the performer commitment to
rotate.

Why are people now upset about the rotation?

Having been a street performer for twenty years,.....I feel comfortable
saying - street performers have a SHORT ATTENTION SPAN. After six months
of negotiation, and a whole year since focused enforcement of any
Ordinance - they forgot that the City was going to force them into "spots
and lottery". They also forgot the enforcement of the old ordinance
(summer '98) which drove most performers out of the area during the
sweeps and caused the last round of lawsuits. So now some are jumping on
the, "let's have fun protesting against the City" band wagon.

Unfortunately, everyone likes a fight, so this element has influenced
much of the media debate, and overshadowed the real story of the City's
commitment to try and find a way to create a sustainable performer
environment.

Rotation and the other elements of the Ordinance will take some time to
get used to. Performers who previously "won" by dominating locations will
scream like they are being killed. But these old, CLEVER dogs will
CERTAINLY learn new tricks.

When I started out - twenty years ago - rotation meant, you left that
part of town for a week or so until complaints cooled down at the police
station. 120 ft every two hours, which allows you to stay on the same
block all day, seems like heaven compared to that. I think that this
current crop of performers have gotten spoiled and don't understand how
good they have it.

And since you mentioned Jerry not being able to set up and take down in
less than a half hour each way. I would like to comment that I have more
"stuff" than Jerry and can pack it up in 3 minutes. Since I have been
doing this for years - up to ten times in a day in some cities - I
understand that it takes some figuring out. I have previously offered, to
Jerry, my assistance in stream lining his table and rotation process
(declined). I offer this assistance again, here, to Jerry and to anyone
else who might need it.

The City and Performers need help and encouragement in order to adopt to
the new system, but there is not the choice of failure. The opportunities
for artists and performers and all expressive people in "traditional"
performer/artist venues have collapsed in this era of improved - passive
- home entertainment and television/mass media addiction. This has lead
us back to the Original traditional public forum. The STREET - where the
people are. And it is already a renaissance. We just have to figure out
how to make it sustainable.........!!!!

Isn't it great to be living in a community that takes the time to think
about these issues and in a country who's laws allow us to do so.....???