One of our alert readers sent this article from the Idaho Reporter about the city of CdA planning $50,000 for artwork at the wastewater treatment plant. 50 grand!…now, in this economy, with 12% unemployment in CdA and all the brouhaha about government spending. Do you think this is a good idea? How out of touch are our city officials?
August 11, 2011
Beautify the Poop Plant!
14 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Well according to JohnA if the poop plant dont get it some other entity will. It is money already spent according to him.
Comment by concerned citizen — August 11, 2011 @ 10:16 am
I never said that, CC.
Comment by JohnA — August 12, 2011 @ 8:32 am
“Beautify the Poop Plant”!
I gather Mary’s not to keen on using public funds to beautify a waste water treatment plant and neither am I.IMO, you only spend money on artwork when the economy is booming and not during a severe downturn. There’s the expression that if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig. Same goes for the Plant. Maybe, the city should move some of those multicolored moose statues down there. 😉
Comment by kageman — August 12, 2011 @ 12:57 pm
Perhaps the Council should move the $50,000 from the Art Commission’s budget and move it over into salary. They could use it to fund at least a couple of jobs. After all, Kennedy was reported, in an October 23, 2009 Spokesman Review story, written by Alison Boggs, to have stated that “creating and retaining jobs and sound budgeting will be top priorities in the next term.” I doubt it would have gone over well for him to have said that ‘art for the waste water treatment plant’ would be his top priority in the next term.
Comment by Joe Six-Pack — August 12, 2011 @ 1:05 pm
Moving the money makes much more sense and would reassure the public that perhaps the entire city hall has not lost its grip on reality. But I don’t hold out much hope. They constantly claim they can’t move money from one account to another, yet when they want to, they do it all the time…without public notice of course.
It’s certainly unnerving to think again about the $100,000 art grant the city council gave to Mrs.McHugh for the metal tree sculpture down on Sherman & 22nd. That’s a lot of $$$$ for one art piece. What’s worse is that she’s the wife of our Kootenai County Prosecutor, Barry McHugh. I can’t get over how improper that deal looks and think it was a poor decision for her to compete for a public money art grant decided by the CdA city council.
Comment by mary — August 12, 2011 @ 1:33 pm
As Mr. Frank Orzel is fond of saying, our local government is money-driven. They have the money to spend, so spend it they must.
Given the other “art” in town, my guess is that the poop plant artwork will be appropriately crappy.
Comment by Dan — August 12, 2011 @ 4:20 pm
Very funny, Dan!
Comment by mary — August 12, 2011 @ 8:03 pm
Kage gets it. Paint every large structure with a very large fat PINK PIG with very large fat RED LIPS.
Comment by Gary Ingram — August 12, 2011 @ 9:04 pm
Jimmy Barona, you could become famous.
Comment by Gary Ingram — August 12, 2011 @ 9:06 pm
Interesting idea, Gary, it would certainly get attention! You reminded me of Jimmy Barona’s fun cartoon about LCDC’s PR “pig” with the lipstick. I was trying to bring it forward and put it on here but I’m not techie enough to be able to do it. (If Dan or Bill want to, it was posted back on Feb 21, 2008.)
Comment by mary — August 13, 2011 @ 8:52 am
Mary,
Done.
Comment by Bill — August 13, 2011 @ 9:48 am
Thanks, Bill, that one always makes me laugh!
Comment by mary — August 13, 2011 @ 1:26 pm
The key to that image is the box: PR Price Tag $35,000. The LCDC spent $35,000 on a PR consultant to try and brush-up their image. Did it work?
Comment by Dan — August 13, 2011 @ 4:33 pm
Dan,
It worked as well as everything else associated with the LCDC works.
Comment by Bill — August 13, 2011 @ 4:57 pm