COSTA MESA : Council to Tell Caltrans It Opposes Funding for Freeway Art

The City Council has decided to write a letter to California Department of Transportation officials, telling them that it believes the money Caltrans is setting aside for freeway art should be used for something else.

Caltrans is planning to erect fiberglass murals on the walls of a few freeways in Costa Mesa and other surrounding cities in Orange County next year. But council members, while they welcomed the idea of the art, thought the money should be spent on more essential services.

Resident Tony Petros told the council that he thought the art, which would go up on the Costa Mesa and Corona Del Mar freeways in the city, was a waste of money.

“Let’s just work on getting from point A to point B,” Petros told the council. “It’s just like the wisdom of our state to put this as a priority. The money could be better spent.”

The amount of federal money that Caltrans plans to spend is not yet known because the project is in its beginning stages. The unanimous vote to reject Caltrans’ idea of erecting art, even though the city has no control over the project, came after Diane Theran Blaisure, the chairwoman of a city-appointed ad hoc committee, submitted art suggestions to the council for its approval.

Caltrans had asked the city to come up with ideas for the art project, which would extend along the Corona del Mar Freeway from Bear Street to the San Diego Freeway and from Fairview Road to 19th Street along the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Some of the art would be mounted on three-foot-square panels, included a great blue heron, an oak tree, a prickly pear cactus, an ocean wave and a gray whale--symbols of Costa Mesa and the outlying region.

Councilwoman Mary Hornbuckle suggested that the council send the ideas to the Orange County Transportation Authority anyway--just in case the art project goes through. That way, she said, Costa Mesa will have some sort of input.