Windsor city councillors Fabio Costante and Ed Sleiman are offering $10,000 of their $50,000 ward fund to save the city’s Black History murals.
At a meeting of the City’s Community Services and Parks Standing Committee on Wednesday, the council members offered the money because it was learned there is no funding in any budget for a project like this.
Sandwich Towne resident and historian Terry Kennedy told the Committee “What I want, is to have the murals placed under and within the shaded bower of trees, on Detroit street, bringing the history together as a fitting tribute to those stories we have yet to discover.”
Lana Talbot of the Historic Sandwich First Baptist Church wants the 16 portrait murals kept together along a bus route for people to view.
“So when the buses do come, because sometimes we have two or three buses at one time, that they would be able to stop, get off the bus and be able to tour and see part of Sandwich as well as the beautiful Tecumseh and Brock statue,” says Talbot.
The 16 individual paintings each measure four feet wide by eight feet tall and they “link together” through a connecting story at the bottom of each panel.
There are three options for where to install the murals.
They are Paterson Park, Russel Street or Adie Knox Herman Recreation Complex.
The committee supports the first option at Paterson Park, at a cost of $53,894. That includes $27,870 needed in labour to move the murals and install them in the park.
The committee also recommends the city invest $8,904 in solar lighting to protect the murals from vandalism and to make them visible at night.
The City of Windsor does have an arts endowment fund, but chair Ed Sleiman tells CTV Windsor they cannot access that money for the Black History murals for at least another year or two.
Committee member Rino Bortolin says he wants to ask the city to create a fund, during budget talks, for projects like this, to protect the regions’ rich history.
Budget talks are slated to begin April 1.
