Deficit Dollar Art

The U.S. government may be laden with debt, but that hasn’t kept the feds from looking for an artist to help ornament the soon-to-be completed Broadway courthouse downtown. “In addition to a new courthouse, the project master plan integrates new and existing federal buildings with gardens, plazas, a water feature and pedestrian paths that engage and support the downtown urban design goals,” according to a notice on the website of the government’s General Services Administration. It goes on to say that the project’s art budget is currently estimated to be $200,000. “One or more artists will be awarded a fixed-price contract for a commission.” The submissions deadline was November. Applicants are to be evaluated based on “media, materials, content, style, and scope of the artist’s past work, along with the artist’s past performance and experience with commissions or projects similar to the one described in this synopsis.”…U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently released a list of deaths of people in its custody during the eight years between October 2003 and October of this year. Of 126 reported mortalities, 4 happened in San Diego, the report says.

Ignacio Sarabia-Vallasenor died of cardiac arrest in January 2005 at the agency’s Otay Detention Facility. That December, Roberto Ledesman-Guerreo died of cardiopulmonary arrest at Sharp Chula Vista hospital. In June 2006, Yusif Osman succumbed to coronary artery vasculitis at the Otay facility. And in January 2009, Julio Martinez died of complications of end-stage hepatic cirrhosis at Alvarado Hospital.