SAUGUS – The town declined Article 31 to the town warrant, seeking to create an approval process for murals and public arts installations in terms of codifying the procedures, design criteria, construction, and maintenance guidelines for “approved arts projects.” The aim of the new regulation was to set guidelines to distinguish between signs, murals, and art, to allow for the creation of new original art murals in Saugus.
“Our signage bylaw is probably one of the strictest signage bylaws in the state,” said Joseph Vecchione from the town Planning Board.
According to him, Saugus’s current bylaw says that any illustration, regardless of its commercial message, is considered a sign, and a sign has a strict set of regulations it should follow. It should not exceed 10% of the facade, and it can only have five colors. Vecchione said Article 31 was designed to create a procedure that would distinguish between a commercial sign and art and thus allow for the creation of murals in Saugus.
“If an image has a commercial message, it would be considered a sign, if it doesn’t, it would be considered art, and it should be exempt from the relevant regulations,” said Vecchione.
However, the exact wording used for the codifying procedures, i.e., “art must be suitable for outdoor display” caused questions on who would define the art suitability. Vecchione clarified that those words, if read in the full sentence they belonged to in the article, clearly referred to materials and safety, and not to the content of art and signs, as it would be unconstitutional to regulate content.
However, despite the clarification, some of the town members questioned if such regulations did not infringe upon free speech. Peter Manoogian, town meeting member from Precinct 10, said that to him it sounded like the current reading of the provision allowed the town to accept or reject the proposed art project on a vague basis of suitability, and that could later result in the town’s further litigations on First Amendment issues.
“The art must be suitable for outdoor display, who defines what suitable is,” said Manoogian.
Some of the town members also mentioned the article opened the conversation on defining the limits of art.
“What is art, something depicting abortion can be art, what are the limits?” said Peter Rossetti.
According to Vecchione, such considerations were speculating on the people’s fear of the unknown, and that Article 31 was initially designed to clarify “in more black and white language” what was considered a sign and what was considered a mural, by defining what the commercial message was.
The same fear of the unknown, according to Vecchione, made the town members question if Saugus, should the article pass, would turn into another Lynn in terms of mural density. Vecchione mentioned that Saugus did not host international art competitions similar to those Lynn had, and that the nature of the town buildings, i.e., lack of the blank facades, did not allow it to have as many murals as in Lynn.
“We have a different art culture than Lynn,” said Vecchione.
The Town Cultural Council supported a broader art introduction to Saugus. Some of the members mentioned that art drove the economy and helped immediately educate the visitors on what was important for the town and its residents. According to the Cultural Council President Mike Sullivan, the residents of Saugus have been asking, “why don’t we have murals in Saugus.”
“I think it’s very important that we begin to bring the art in Saugus in a respectful manner,” said Sullivan.
Oksana Kotkina can be reached at [email protected].
