It’s not the right time to pay $18K for Hebe
The recent decision by McMinnville city officials to deny a $18,000 request to help restore the downtown statue Hebe is a wise move.
While restoring Hebe is a worthwhile cause, funding that restoration through taxpayer dollars is not the best option at this point. Let’s not forget the non-stop cries we keep hearing around every corner: “Government must tighten up,” and “No more taxes.”
With those familiar refrains constantly in the background, government must be careful with every penny it spends. That applies to the federal, state, and local levels.
In a time of economic prosperity with free-flowing money and no budget concerns, it would be perfectly acceptable to allocate $18,000 from city taxpayer coffers to give Hebe a facelift. The statue, located in the heart of downtown, is badly rusted and has paint chipping off it in several places.
Improving the statue makes sense – especially considering the emphasis on improving Main Street and the immediate downtown district.
However, confronted with economizing and prioritizing, Hebe becomes one of those projects which gets placed on the back burner. In short, if we are forced to make cuts, a statue should be one of the first places those cuts occur.
The statue, while a downtown mainstay for many decades, goes unnoticed by a large number of Warren countians. In fact, virtually every time this newspaper publishes a story on Hebe, one of our reporters is invariably asked, “Where is that thing anyway?”
Hebe does have significance for many local residents and, if repaired, it will prove to be an appealing feature. But with city officials already expressing a desire to borrow some $3 million for Main Street revitalization, the spending has to stop somewhere. In this day when taxpayers are demanding every dollar be accounted for, paying $18,000 to repair Hebe is simply too much.
That might not seem like an abundance of money in the scope of million dollar budgets, but when teachers are on the chopping block, $18,000 is half of a teacher’s salary. And while it’s the county, and not the city, which bears the burden of supporting our public schools, $18,000 is still $18,000.
If Hebe is to be restored, it certainly seems like the work can be done much cheaper than the current estimates. And, as it stands now, the repair work should be paid through private donations.
A group such as Heritage Alliance is perfectly capable of conducting a Hebe fund-raiser if it so desires. That way, people who want the work done can pay for it to be done out of their own pockets.
Is that the ideal way to handle the situation. No, it’s not.
But with so much emphasis on saving money and making cutbacks, not everything can be funded. And if cuts must be made, paying $18,000 to repair a statue should be one of the first things to go.