7/6/2009
DAVID CLOUSTON
Nothing about a proposed public art component — involving sawed-off utility poles topped by windsocks — to welcome Interstate Highway 70 travelers to north Salina caught the desire of Salina city commissioners as much as saving money did.
Commissioners on Monday approved the streetscape and entryway enhancements — minus the public art. The plan calls for installing new wayfinding signs, as well as dressing up the I-135/Crawford and I-70/Ninth Street interchanges with plantings.
However, commissioners for now are rejecting the proposal for adding grids of two-dozen sawed-off utility poles topped with windsocks as part of the more than half-million dollar project.
Without the poles and windsocks — but with a 3 percent construction contingency in case of change orders — the city is to pay $405,562.53, and the Kansas Department of Transportation another $253,947.50. The KDOT grant money comes from the state’s transportation enhancement program.
“I haven’t liked the pole idea from the time it was originally proposed,” Commissioner Aaron Peck said. “The entrances of the community ought to have something that is aesthetically pleasing and easy for all to sort of ‘Get.’ And this doesn’t meet that criteria for me."


For more on Monday's city commissionan action, read reporter David Clouston's story in Tuesday's Salina Journal.

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