Million dollar memorial to 9-11 planned for Pembroke Pines

PEMBROKE PINES — The city plans to spend nearly $1 million on a 2,000 square foot stone and glass 9-11 Memorial, to be completed by September 11.

The pentagonal structure will house seven steel and marble sculptures commissioned by the city to depict the events of the September 11 attacks and a piece of the World Trade Center, donated to the city by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The sculptures include an 8 1/2-foot tall steel firefighter, a woman poised to jump to her death and a frightened little girl perched atop a shaky steel girder. A police officer should soon join the ranks.

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The city didn't set out to build a memorial quite this elaborate in 2004, when it started this project, said former Commissioner Angelo Castillo. Commissioners intended to build an outdoor memorial with a few statues.

But after the city hired two artists for the project, a problem arose: one of them had chosen to work in steel, and steel rusts in the open air.

Steel artist Felix Gonzalez sent an e-mail to commissioners last year suggesting that the city donate the artwork to New York City, because Pembroke Pines had nowhere to properly house it. Faced with Gonzalez's insistence that the work would not be safe outside, exposed to vandals and the elements, the city decided in September to move forward with an indoor memorial.

"Any other city in these economic times would say, 'We can't do this anymore,'" said Gonzalez, who retired as a firefighter in 2001 to begin an art career. "They should be commended. They've pressed on through it, and believed in me."

The commission this month entered a $682,000 contract with MBR Construction to build the structure. A veteran's memorial to complement the 9-11 display makes up $41,000 of that bill. That's in addition to $20,000 paid for the art and $48,000 spent on an art studio.

That price may be $90,000 higher come January, when the commission will vote on whether to upgrade the building to a more energy efficient LEED silver certification.

The city plans to use unspent funds from the $90 million general obligation bond passed in 2005 to pay MBR's contract. The city's taxpayers are repaying the GO bond with interest rates between 3.2 and 4.6 percent through 2035.

An outdoor memorial might have been cheaper, Castillo said, but the indoor display will be "one of the best 9-11 memorials in Florida."

"Every other 9-11 memorial is outside," Castillo said. "But that's not the point. We're going to have a great memorial."

The project has its opponents.

"I think it went from a memorial to a monster, for a tremendous amount of expenditure," said Phil McConaghey, a resident and longtime political activist. "And now they're paying for it with a bond issue where the monies were not supposed to be used for that purpose.

"This is not something the voters approved when they approved this bond issue. It's basically a camel created by a commission that was trying to invent a horse."

Mayor Frank Ortis is confident the city can recoup the cost of the project through donations. The city set up a nonprofit in October 2009 to raise funds for the memorials, which so far has collected about $52,000. Of that, $50,000 comes from a single anonymous contributor.

"We're confident we're going to be okay," Ortis said.

The 9-11 and veteran's memorials will face one another on an oval plaza in the heart of City Center, the city's developing government-planned downtown area. The 9-11 memorial will have a high sloped ceiling and a mostly glass exterior. The WTC beam will sit on a marble pedestal, surrounded by the sculptures.

The memorial will be lit night and day, air conditioned and protected by security guards, Ortis said. The recurring costs for electricity and security have not yet been determined, said City Manager Charles Dodge.

Castillo initiated the project in 2004, when he wrote a letter to the mayor of New York City and obtained the WTC girder. New York donated pieces of the building to many cities, Castillo said, and Pembroke Pines was one of them.

Castillo lived in New York City and worked for three mayors before moving to Florida.

"I know a lot of people who died that day," he said. "And a lot of former New Yorkers live in Pembroke Pines. But all Americans were touched by it."

So we have no money for cars, civilian pensions, basic cost of living adjustments and numerous other important expenses. But we can spend a million bucks on an air conditioned structure for a statue, simply because the artist decided that he did not want to make a water-resistant memorial. How much is it going to cost to maintain this thing? And this is an expense that will be with us forever! Once it is in place, nobody will be willing to let this thing fall apart.

We negotiated away very many financial benefits on this last contract, and these clowns blow the money on this crap! Is anyone else outraged about this?

Let's not forget about the good citizens of our city. One of the reasons that we gave up a lot of pay was to keep them from getting a big tax hike. How do they feel about buying a million dollar statue and then paying to air condition the statue for the rest of their lives?

We'll pay for the statue and its upkeep with the money we get from all these red light cameras. In case you haven't noticed, we've changed the patterns to all intersection traffic lights so that they turn red more often. Sooner or later these drivers will be so fed up with catching the red lights that they'll be speeding to the next intersection before that light turns red (which is where you radar guys will help), and will run that red light where we have a camera.

This is the kind of ridiculous spending that is causing higher taxes.

We need to know which one of the idiots in the commission approved this spending, let them defend their decision to spend this money in this manner and then make them pay for it out of their pockets!