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October 2, 2006

Arts education | A talk with John Rohman about Bangor's quest to catalog its cultural assets and poll residents about what additions they'd like to see to the landscape

By Whit Richardson
Bangor's downtown has seen a creative renaissance of sorts over the past 10 years, with museums like the University of Maine Museum of Art settling in and the arrival of the annual folk festival on the riverfront. Citing the importance of these cultural activities and amenities to its downtown revitalization goals, the Bangor City Council recently set out to conduct a citywide survey of its artistic and cultural assets ˆ— from art galleries, music venues and historic sites to the lesser known or untapped resources in the city.

John Rohman, a former mayor of Bangor and a principle at WBRC Architects-Engineers, was on the city council a few years ago when it established a Commission on Cultural Development, a group that oversees arts development downtown. Although he's no longer on the city council, Rohman is now the chair of the commission, which recently launched the cultural survey thanks to a $15,000 grant Bangor received two months ago from the Maine Arts Commission, of which Rohman also is the chair.

The survey asks residents questions such as: "Do you believe additional arts venues in Bangor would be beneficial to the community?" and whether residents believe the city government should initiate the development. Rohman estimates the Maine Arts Commission has funded between 12 and 20 such surveys in the state over the last seven years, but he says the Bangor survey differs from all the rest in one important aspect: "All of [the surveys] start with an inventory of what's available in the community and in many cases that is actually the end," he says. "The ambitions for the assessment in Bangor are much broader than that. The assessment is only step one; step two is also to find out what the citizens want."

Mainebiz spoke with Rohman to learn more about process, and what the city hopes to do with the results. An edited transcript follows.

Mainebiz: Why is Bangor going through with a cultural assessment now?

Rohman: Well you have to go back to the grains of what the city council would like to see from this cultural commission. The city council took a look at the revitalization going on in our downtown and recognized that the downtown was also seeing a resurgence in the number of people living there, small shops that were opening, empty spaces getting filled up and traffic patterns increasing. With all of that happening the tax base was also growing after declining for a significant number of years. And because of that, the city has said we can actually make an investment in this area because we are getting a return on that investment.

Why is the survey important for Bangor?

The kinds of things this survey will bring forward have been done on the natural resources side in many communities. In Bangor we have a very good park system, we've got an excellent walkway-hiking system around our waterways, we have a very nice city forest with miles of biking trails. Those kinds of things people knew and understood and could physically see. The arts and cultural side to our community ˆ— those assets are not as visible. The idea of a survey is to really determine, first off, what we have, and second of all, how can we utilize those pieces.

What will the city do with the results of the survey once it's complete?

It's really two steps: Number one, the survey will give us a good list of what we have available, but that's only a very small part of it. Probably the bigger part of it is what our citizens want. In other words, what would you like to see in your community?
I'll give you a good example: In Portland, with the renovation [of Merrill Auditorium] the city had undertaken a number of years ago, that's a real resource for the city. But you don't have to go to a large city to see what kind of resource that is. You can also go to a place like Dover-Foxcroft and find out what their theater has meant to their community; you can go to Camden and find out what their newly renovated theater has meant to their community.

I would love to see the same kind of thing for Penobscot Theater and our old Bangor Opera House, which is in downtown Bangor. And I suspect that will be one of the things that will come out loud and clear from the survey.

Once you have those answers, what's the next step?

Well, if there's enough critical mass of folks wanting these kinds of things and if there's enough of a clamor to say these are things that would really satisfy a big portion of the citizens of Bangor, I know the city council will be responsive to that. When the citizens came forward and said we want more opportunities to bike in city forests, we want more opportunities to hike and cross country ski, the city actually bought a lot more property in city forests.

I've heard a very small percentage of Bangor residents have completed the survey so far. How will you convince people to take the time to participate in this dialogue with the city?
They have to know that there's a bigger purpose than just to document a bunch of information. They have to know, frankly, that it's something they can have an impact on and there's something in it for them. I think once they understand that this survey will ultimately lead to some benefit for them, then I think they'll be much more enthusiastic about it. I think at this point they see the word "survey" and they think somebody's going to ask a lot of questions, but that's going to be the end of it.

How about the skeptics who believe the idea of a creative economy is fluff? What do you say to them?

Well, I think the creative economy could never be seen as a replacement for a lot of the other industries we have in the state of Maine. But I think there's no question that there are growing numbers in the creative economy and if they think of it in terms of another arrow in the quiver of economic development rather than a replacement, I think everyone can wrap their arms around it.
I think the danger is saying this is the new economy, and I frankly think that it's just another piece that we can offer right next to all the other pieces of our economy.

What do you expect the end result of the survey to be?

Well, I've got a hope. I've got a hope that there's enough enthusiasm from our citizens to say, number one, we think the direction the city has gone with supporting the arts and cultural institutions already has been significant and we applaud that, but we want more. We want an opportunity to have more venues. We love having the folk festival here for three days, but you know what? We want to have those kinds of musical groups here for more than just those three days. We want to make sure that there is cultural diversity in our area. And unfortunately it's not as strong as it is in some areas in the state, but it is growing. The Hispanic community has certainly embraced the folk festival and I would love to have them have opportunities to see folks they can directly relate to on more than just those three days.

What can the city council can do to foster development downtown that might be recommended in the survey?

Well, for example, where the children's museum now is, that was the former Freese department store building. The city actually took ownership of that building for two reasons: Number one, they had a gigantic white elephant right downtown, and they knew something needed to happen there. But they also wanted to encourage more housing downtown and offer an opportunity for a people-gathering place downtown. So they opened it up to a developer who brought in some elderly housing, and the city brought that building to a white-box state and then turned it over to the children's museum.

The city has been integral to helping those kinds of groups come into the downtown area. I'd like to see them consider ˆ— if there was enough demand for it, if there was a return on their investment ˆ— doing [something similar] with another space downtown for other venues.

Since getting involved with the state's steering committee on the creative economy and now with your role as chair of the Maine Arts Commission, has your thinking changed over the years about fostering the arts in Maine?

Well, the biggest thing that I see now that I didn't see six or seven years ago is the necessity for collaboration. We really need to be hand in hand with our business partners, but also we need to be hand in hand with the natural resources partners. These are the things that keep our citizens in the state of Maine, they are the things that attract our visitors to come to our state.

It's not simply the hiking, biking and kayaking. It's the hiking, biking, kayaking associated with really good restaurants with some venues to go to, with the lobster festivals, the clam festival. All those individual pieces are integrated, and I think too many times we were looking at those as two different tracks, when in fact they really need to be combined.

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