The Independent

A $10,000 hand painted mural was a little rich for Plympton-Wyoming councillors.

During their last meeting before the Oct. 26 election, councillors considered applying for a Creative County grant. Staff had suggested a hand-painted mural on the back of the Wyoming Pool building.

But the price tag would be $10,000. If the town received the grant, it would have to pay half the cost.

“This is a good idea. I think $10,000 for a mural, though…I don’t know if we’re going really high on this or what, but after going through last two weeks of a barrage on our infrastructure and everything else, to turn around and tell the people we’re going to spend $5,000 of our money to paint a picture,” Councillor Mike Vasey suggested would not be a good idea.

Councillor Bob Woolvett agreed.

“We’re facing some headwinds here on costs for infrastructure and flooding and so on and so forth that we’ve certainly heard lots of over the last short while,” he said at the Oct. 19 council meeting. “I support it for sure, but maybe we could find a maybe a little less cost and not having a hand painted mural that’s going to be, you know, peel off anyways over time.”

CAO Adam Sobanski said town staff was looking for something new to do and a hand-painted mural seemed a perfect fit for the pool wall. County staff, who had worked with other municipalities on mural project, suggested $10,000 would be needed.

“It is not an inexpensive project, and we did consider other projects that would be less cost intensive, including applying for additional historical photo murals, which could be installed in lieu of painted mural at a lesser cost,” said Sobanski.

“We are open to suggestions if council feels that the painted mural is not the choice.”

He added the historic murals which have been installed on buildings around Wyoming are about $2,000 each installed.

Councillors asked staff to revise the grant to apply for $5,000 and find a project which would fit the numbers.

“Maybe for the following year we can work with the historical society on a joint application to figure out something to
digitize and story tell their awesome stuff they have in there,” added Councillor Alex Boughen.