Thursday, November 02, 2006

Holiday decorations

Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year...at least at my home. Decorating for Christmas takes literally a couple of weeks. Yes, we really like Christmas. That's one of the reasons I always get depressed every year when the city puts up those ugly, dilapidated decorations on the light poles throughout town. They are several decades old and get a little worse for wear every year. It's gotten to the point where I wish the city would just stop putting them up. They are beyond repair...they need to be replaced.

That's why I was happy to read the minutes of this past Tuesday's Finance/Development Standby Committee meeting. The city is finally talking about replacing the city's holiday decorations. $38,000 dollars worth of new decorations are being talked about for this year with more decorations on the way next year.

This year's wish list includes:
•Holiday banners and wreaths on 80 light poles downtown = approx. $24,000
•Replacing the white lights on the tops of downtown buildings and the evergreens on Kittson Avenue with new LED lights which are longer lasting and are lower wattage = approx. $11,500.00
•Additional strings of lights for the tree on the west side of the DeMers Avenue overpass = approx. $2,400.00

As for those ratty decorations along the major thoroughfares...looks like we'll have to put up with them for one more year. The city is recommending that the same old red bells be put up this holiday season and then replaced next year with brand new decorations.

Since the project is over $30,000, the proposal will next have to go to the entire city council. Why wouldn't the city want to spend a relatively small sum of money to make the city so much more festive during the holiday season? Seems like a no brainer to me.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope you're all happy, one police officer and a fireman was laid off to provide the funds for the new decorations.

GrandForksGuy said...

I hope you're all happy, one police officer and a fireman was laid off to provide the funds for the new decorations.

Don't be silly. Nothing of the sort has taken place.

Anonymous said...

The backstory is a good one. It's actually about $27.50 worth of lights and decorations from Wal-Mart. The other 35K goes to Curt's landscaping company to install the junk. That's awesome. I love the way the council, and their cronies, weasel crap in there because no one's paying attention.

Anonymous said...

How about Kudos to Happy Harry's and LumberMart on 32nd for putting white lights around their trees. Those two places look great in the evening. How about other business's putting up some money to do something that simple that looks nice?
(I think Menard's does this too. Just didn't notice them the other night)

GrandForksGuy said...

How about Kudos to Happy Harry's and LumberMart on 32nd for putting white lights around their trees.

Kudos are certainly in order for these and a few other businesses around town for the great decorations they put up every year. Happy Harry's has also decorated their trees at the north location. Since the Gershmans are Jewish and thus don't celebrate Christmas, I always jokingly refer to the lights as Chanukah lights.