Orlando officials are looking to duplicate Pensacola’s pelican statues, but the public isn’t too crazy about the idea:
Orlando leaders are bringing a new sculpture downtown. This time, it’s a 6 1/2-foot family of pelicans.
One blogger already has dubbed it “Buddy’s Bird.”Mayor Buddy Dyer had planned to tap downtown tax dollars for the $12,000 needed to buy the stone sculpture and another $13,000 to install it. But a developer stepped forward Monday and offered to pay the $25,000 to end a burgeoning controversy over what some labeled a waste of public money.
“Any great community is known by its art, and we want to be part of that,” Camilo Aguirre, principal developer of the high-end Blue Rose hotel on Universal Boulevard, said of his decision to pay for the artwork.
But some Orlando residents don’t seem to share his opinion.
Media reports on WDBO-540AM and WFTV-Channel 9 last week indicated the pelicans were to be the first of more than two dozen sculptures the city planned to buy and install along Magnolia Avenue. City officials said Monday that there was no truth to those reports, and that though they would like to install more statues, there are no plans to do so.
But the city’s response was too late: The storm of angry phone calls, e-mails and blog postings already had begun.
Read the article: Pelican statue spurs public squawking