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George, Thank you for all the coverage you continue to give to the First Amendment Monument, including asking your readers to comment on the monument now that it has been up for two months. From the point of view of the monument's owners, the Thomas Jefferson Center has been extremely pleased with how the community has embraced the monument. For the most part, people have used the monument as we predicted. The comments on the chalkboard range from the serious to the silly, from local politics to national politics, from the religious and philosophical to the inane, from works of art to ... well, lesser works of art. To date, there has been no physical damage to the monument. There has been some purely offensive expression on the monument but the ratio of such expression to inoffensive speech has been about 1 to 100. Admittedly, much of the above is subjective and I know there are some who would disagree with my assessment. But while reasonable minds may disagree about the quality of the content on the monument, it is undeniable that a lot of people (and I mean a lot) are contributing to that content. Indeed, I must confess that we underestimated how much (and how often) the monument would be used. Often, the entire chalkboard is covered in less than a day. So much so that it is difficult to read what is written. To mitigate that issue during the summer (when use is greatest), we are cleaning the monument twice a week rather than once as originally planned. There is one aspect of the monument over which I am a little disappointed. As Gayle Floyd noted in her assessment of the monument, far too little attention and credit has been given to its designers. Not only did local architects Pete O'Shea and Robert Winstead conceive the idea of a community chalkboard and podium as an appropriate monument to the First Amendment, they worked long hours over several years (with little compensation) to make the monument a reality. Throughout this process, Pete and Rob's motivation was always to create something that would enhance the cultural life of our community. The monument is not only the result of their immense talent, but also their civic mindedness. Whether one approves of the monument or not, all should applaud Pete and Rob for their dedication to the Charlottesville community. Similarly, a colleague of Pete's, Susan Hughes, has received little public acknowledgment for all of her efforts. Susan is that behind-the-scenes person found in any large project that takes care of the million-and-one details necessary to actually complete the project. Josh Wheeler (electronic mail, July 6, 2006)
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