FIRST OFF . . .

About 10 local artists and others plan to install a 24-foot-high “Goddess of Democracy” at City Hall today at 8 a.m. to show their support for Chinese pro-democracy demonstrators. The statue, modeled after the one recently destroyed in the carnage at Beijing, is being built by artist Tom Van Sant, a member of the local chapter of Artists Equity Assn., a national service organization, whose members are coordinating the local demonstration. “We’re doing this to let the Chinese government know we disapprove of the use of political violence to resolve differences and to let the Chinese people know that we’re behind what they’re doing,” said Bill Lasarow, an organizer. Local Chinese groups have been contacted, he said, so that they may attend the event and express their feelings, and other Artists Equity Assn. chapters and arts groups here and abroad have been encouraged to stage demonstrations simultaneously. Similar statues have been erected in other American cities.