Today a panel appointed by the Seattle Center praised the Chihuly museum's "organizational readiness" and "determined that no other proposal was as successful in meeting the... criteria," when announcing their recommendation for a Chihuly glass museum with a high admission fee to be hosted on public grounds for the next 20 years.

"This was not a setup," Bill Block, leader of a panel, said on the phone today. "We came into the process open minded... these are folks who poured their heart and soul into developing the [Seattle Center] master plan. They aren’t particularly subject to pressure or manipulation and they came to this conclusion."

But let's consider their criteria, beginning with the claim that Chihuly should prevail for virtue of "organizational readiness." The process of building this "organization," a private venture of the Space Needle company, was manipulated from the outset. The Chihuly museum had an upper hand, with backing from city council members before the public ever heard a word, over a year to lobby for and design their project, identify funding, and run an astroturf campaign to get its project on the ground. And then it offered "supporters" free food at the Space Needle restaurant, stacked a public meeting with PR flacks, and threw in a $2 million playground to appease critics. So it's not surprising the committee—made up by people with strong ties to the Seattle Center and Space Needle, which have been pushing for the project—find a project with a year's advantage to be more ready. Indeed, it seems they have been the ones "ready" for a Chihuly museum all along.

But fine. Let's pretend for a moment that the whole public bidding process wasn't a sham. The panel's pro-Chihuly recommendation doesn't contain a lot of new information (it mostly parrots the talking points from the museum backers), but two things are worth noting: The panel claims to give little credence to the financial returns of any one proposal—the Chihuly museum's only strength—and still finds the glass museum as being the only proposal worth recommending at the site (even though they had the freedom to recommend multiple proposals). "The consensus of the panel was that it wanted to make a recommendation of that strength," Block said. So they rely on the bogus claim of "organization readiness."

Block says that the panel took the public's concerns and comments "very seriously." (For the record, public opinion at City Hall has been decidedly against the plan—Seattle City Council member Sally Bagshaw, chair of the Parks & Seattle Center Committee, has received over 500 e-mails in April about the project, with three-quarters of these constituents against a Chihuly Museum.) Here's how the panel tackles the three main public concerns about the Chihuly museum—namely, that it will be a static fly-trap for tourists enclosed by an eight-foot wall:

After the jump.

(1) Only one member on the panel was concerned that a 20-year display of static work from one artist was artistically bankrupt upon deposit. Other members saw this as fitting with the Seattle Center's efforts to "create a community of diversity and inclusiveness" because of the proposal's vague assertions that the museum would include "activities which involve emerging artists and students from Pratt Fine Arts Center and Pilchuck Glass School." Block admits that Chihuly museum proponents never stated how large of a role emerging artists and students would play in the museum's exhibits. An exhibit a year? For how long? "There was not specificity as to how much," Block says.

(2) As for this being a tourist trap with negligible value for locals, Block argues that if the museum is static, it won't attract people, and that's not "good business." Again, this is flawed logic: A static exhibit will still attract plenty of tourists, who are already estimated to make up 70 percent of the museum's clientele. It's the locals who won't go.

(3) The panel was also satisfied with the "permeability to the fencing and visibility of the art through and rising above the fencing." In other words—too poor to pay for art? Stand on your tip-toes! The panel did recommend that details of the wall should be part of the lease negotiations and the Seattle Design Commission review process. Perhaps someone can bargain them down to a 7.5-foot wall, so the public can enjoy a better view.

The panel also stated that the "projected local attendance is 133,333 people, 30% of a total projected attendance of 400,000, which represents a substantially higher local visitor number than the next highest realistic local attendance projection." Obviously they're talking about KEXP here. In making this weak argument, the panel fails to consider KEXP's ability to cultivate a larger local audience with new digs and a bigger space to hold public concerts. The panel has embraced a house of glass that offers local residents no real incentive to return over a local organization that offers live, rotating, free musical performances. In the end, they throw KEXP a bone by "encourag[ing] Seattle Center to continue their conversations with KEXP" and other organizations to squeeze them on to campus.

If you have strong opinions on the panel's recommendation, let the mayor know.