Civil discourse initiative comes to Westport Library after mural controversy
WESTPORT — A new way to inspire constructive dialogue in town might be coming to the Westport Library, following the controversy around the library’s mural.
The Common Ground Iniative was announced during the Feb. 2 TEAM Westport meeting, where Library Director Bill Harmer said a planning committee is working on the effort.
“There needs to be a way to move forward civilly and respectfully,” Harmer said.
The Common Ground Initiative would allow for civil discourse about local and national topics that people may or may not agree on, Harmer said.
“It’s important that when we create these types of forums and we have these types of topics of issues, that the community is represented at these events,” he said.
Harmer said the planning committee has met once so far and will be made of members who represent diverse viewpoints in the community.
The library is looking to start this initiative in May and have the first subject focus on civil discourse, Harmer said.
“If we can’t have civil discourse, then we can’t address some of these other topical issues,” he added.
This announcement comes following online debate about historical inaccuracies in the River of Names mural, which was housed at the original Westport Library from the late 1990s until the rebuilding of the new library from 2017 to 2019.
During the meeting, TEAM Westport Chair Harold Bailey, Westport Museum Executive Director Ramin Ganeshram and other attendees said residents criticized the various town organizations involved in the mural review, including theirs, through a blog.
Bailey said the comments became personal, and can have the potential to become dangerous.
“It’s a character assassination; it’s a reputation destruction,” he said.
Bailey said the comments began to settle down when the Westport
Museum recommended having the mural displayed somewhere with a digital, updated version including explanations next to it.
Since the mural’s removal, the library has paid Cozier Fine Arts to house it and are actively looking for the mural’s new home at various places around Westport, Harmer said.
In 2021, the library’s board of trustees directed staff to reach out to people within the town’s Art Advisory Council, TEAM Westport and the Westport Museum for History and Culture to review and discuss the mural, according to a library statement in December.
“These organizations independently expressed concerns about historical inaccuracies and the lack of representation of diverse people who played a significant role in Westport’s history,” according to the statement.
The library board then announced in Decemember that it did not intend to reinstall the mural, which sparked a backlash from the community.
“The decision not to reinstall the tile wall was
one made by the Library’s Board of Trustees and the Board alone,” the statement read. “We appreciate that not everyone agrees with the board’s conclusion, and we understood that it might not be universally popular, but it was made in good faith based on the mission and values of the Library.”
At the TEAM meeting, Harmer said that the library is not a town entity, but does receive funding from the town, and follows its policy on diversity, equity and inclusion.
“The board did not feel that the tile wall was an appropriate reflection of those policies,” he said. “Upon inspection, some seams in the tile wall do not represent a Westport that we celebrate today and do not align with our mission of being open to all.”
Harmer said they have been thinking about the discourse initiative for “a long time,” but felt it was important to work on it now because of the mural situation and other recent
happenings within the country, such as polarization.
“What are we going to do as a community to sort of address the way that we communicate with one another about things we don’t agree on?” Harmer asked.
First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker welcomed the idea.
“I couldn’t be more supportive of the Common
Ground Initiative that the library is launching,” Tooker said. “I think it needs to happen here. I think it is exactly what we need to do, as a community. It is not going to be the end all and be all, but I think it is a wonderful, community-wide, public step in trying to address this issue.”