In Boulder City, a fuss about a dam statue

By Jean Reid Norman

Monday, July 27, 2009 | 1:59 a.m.

One bronze figure sits with his boots off, sandwich in hand, looking up at a workmate clearly in midsentence.

The standing figure in the new statue at Arizona Street and Nevada Way has his hands lifted up, shoulders shrugged, as if saying, “I don’t know what all the fuss was about.”

But the installation this month of the “Puddler’s Break” by Sutton Betti, the fifth statue in downtown Boulder City paid for with Redevelopment Agency money, represents an ongoing controversy on the City Council about how RDA money should be spent.

The final approval for the $50,000 cost came in January when the City Council, serving as the RDA board, voted 3-2, with Council members Linda Strickland and Travis Chandler expressing reservations about spending the money on artwork with the economy in recession and city budget struggling.

Strickland, who noted she doesn’t oppose public art, suggested suspending the program, which was funded through 2010, until the economy improves.

Chandler’s objections go deeper, he said last week. He thinks voters ought to approve spending city money on things such as art, and he did not like the fact that the work on the statue was authorized before the council had approved it.

Andrea Anderson and Mike Pacini, who were on the council at the time, and Mayor Roger Tobler had all supported the program and the statue by Betti, his first large-scale public art project. But they agreed that future pieces would need to receive a final council blessing before the artist began work.

None of that history is reflected in the scene next to Franks Barber Shop. The history depicted is that of the building of Hoover Dam. The two figures are puddlers, whose job it was to stir and smooth each layer of cement as it was poured to create the dam. They used shovels and their feet to ensure there were no air bubbles or debris — including bodies — in the concrete, a plaque explains.

Betti said he decided to show the pair taking a break to make his piece different from others showing dam workers, such as the High Scalers at Hoover Dam.

“I was thinking during the time they were working on the dam, it was the Depression, and anyone with a job would be happy,” Betti said. “I wanted to show them happy.”

That is the history that the artwork is designed to show, said Darlene Burk, who was on the committee that selected the statue. The program’s mission is to show the history of Boulder City from its beginning as the town that built the dam.

The other statues purchased with city money include “Hitching a Ride,” at the corner of B Street and Nevada Way, of children on a tricycle; “Afternoon Breeze,” at the opposite corner of Arizona Street and Nevada Way from the new piece, of a Depression-era woman holding her hat against a brisk wind; “Alabam,” at the corner of Wyoming Street and Nevada Way, of the Hoover Dam worker who serviced the outhouses; and “London Bridge,” in front of City Hall, of children playing.

They are not the only outdoor statues in Boulder City, of course. The ArtScape project, which displays outdoor sculptures for a year, has 17 pieces that went up in May, Burk said. In addition, McDonald’s on Nevada Highway has installed several statues of children playing, and several other privately owned statues decorate downtown streets.

The puddlers in the newest work seem oblivious to the debate, but one part of the statue could appear symbolic: The two concrete-spattered shovels, which could be used to “bury” the controversy -- or dig it back up.

CORRECTION: This story was updated to add that the statue was installed this month. | (July 27, 2009)