by Chris Toovey

Mick Rhodes’ December 12, 2025 Editor’s Note acknowledged that publishing the December 5, 2025 Viewpoint, “El Barrio art project headed in wrong direction” by the late Al Villanueva was a mistake. Here are some reasons why I agree.

The Viewpoint, which was removed from the Courier’s website on December 7, 2025, was about a community art project in the Arbol Verde neighborhood’s El Barrio Park, in which two finalists were contending for the art project contract. The contract award decision would be announced after the concept design presentations, during the November 17, 2025 Claremont Public Art Committee meeting. However, after public comment and a short deliberation the PAC moved to delay its decision in order to “review questions about funding and calls from the public for more review time.” On November 28, the Courier reported that the contract award date would be moved to December 8, three days after the December 5 Viewpoint was published, allowing no chance for a rebuttal until after the decision. Without the means to address the allegations in the Viewpoint article, the artist team, if they were to lose, feared they could be vulnerable to assumptions that the reason for their loss was because the allegations made in it might be true. The mistake was to allow the allegations to be entered into the public record.

From November 28 through December 5 the three artist team became increasingly aware that they had become the subject of a behind the scenes campaign to discredit and denigrate not only their work but their character and even their gender.

The Courier’s November 28 story, “El Barrio Park Art Project Moves Closer to Fruition,” featured a photograph of only one of the artist finalists prominently placed in the center of the page. A photograph of the other finalist team was nowhere to be found, although the online version of the Courier did include a photo of the team’s lead artist. Also, reporter Andrew Alonzo’s presenting only open-ended budget numbers with little to no itemized accounting or expenditure breakdown could hardly be used as a fair budget comparison, but it was. If the reporter reviewed the contract requirements, he might have seen that the budget comparison was as apples to oranges. It was a mistake to allow this unfair advantage. [Editor’s note: the Courier acknowledged the error in a correction published December 5, 2025.]

It turns out the Viewpoint was only one part of a full court press meant to malign and discredit what the author saw as his competition. There were social media posts and a KPFK radio interview, and an onsite confrontation at El Barrio Park with one of the artist team members being informed that the community had already chosen the artist for the project, and the artist team would be better off not wasting their time.

I also agree the Viewpoint allegations were as Rhodes acknowledged, “potentially damaging.” I assume he meant “potentially damaging” because the extent of the damage done, if any, can’t be readily assessed. Still the effects of bad press can be immediately harmful, they can also be lingering. Removing the Viewpoint from the Courier website was a good piece of editorial damage control for both the artists and the paper. Let’s hope that in the three days that the piece was online the damage to the artists’ reputations was only immediate, collateral and contained, and won’t find its way to any archived public record; though the court of public opinion has always been part of the public record, you read that in the papers all the time.

The reason for the artists’ team withdrawal from the project is that they feared the assaults on their personal and professional  reputations would be amplified if they had remained in the running.

I’ve written this letter as a reminder that the printed page of a news periodical is the most public of public records and that editing is not censorship if ground rules for op-ed submissions are clearly spelled out. The editor is the first and sometimes the only line of defense. For the artist team in question their largest concern is to minimize the potential damage to their reputation and in turn their livelihood as professional visual artists.

Chris Toovey is a 68 year Claremont resident, a former Claremont Public Art Committee member, and co-founder of dA Center for the Arts.