Our mayors and councils like to complain about not having enough money.
We often hear them pleading to provincial and federal governments for more dollars or new taxing powers.
While crying poor may be justified, they lose credibility with me when they spend money on what I call luxury items.
I'm talking about public art.
Earlier this week, the city of Port Coquitlam unveiled a carving inside city hall. The project was budgeted at approximately $20,000.
Other councils have also been spendthrift. The city of Port Moody budgeted $40,000 for its portion of the Necklace Project now at the Port Moody Arts Centre.
The Pioneer Spirit sculpture at Mackin Park, in Coquitlam, cost thousands of dollars.
Coquitlam has also budgeted $50,000 - allocated from money it receives as host city to the Hard Rock Casino Vancouver - to fund a task force to recommend art works to be displayed at Evergreen Line stations. (The provincial government is paying for the art at a cost to taxpayers of $75,000 per station).
Unfortunately, this is a growing phenomenon across the county.
Calgary's Naheed Nenshi and his city council now allocate 1% of their capital budget to public art. Last year, they spent $471,000 for a public art project that literally looks like a blue circle with lamps on top of it.
This has to stop.
I understand these works of art are seen a way to beautify cities; they apparently help express a region's cultural identity. I get that.
But I don't need to be wowed by "beauty" as I get on a SkyTrain.
And city officials complaining that they're cash strapped, on one hand, and then spending money on these types of unnecessary items is rather disingenuous. If I have a cracked tile in my house, for example, I'm going to fix that before buying a Renoir print.
If our councils want art, why don't they exclusively utilize the efforts of art students in our high schools and local colleges? Why don't we require developers to do more? Or seek donations from the community?
Certainly these aren't huge amounts of money - the expense for public art is but a minuscule percent of the overall budget. But shouldn't we be spending the money we do have a little more wisely?
