$191K inappropriate dragons torn down

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

In 2006, Portland City Council spent, in part, $191,000 erecting Asian dragon statues at the front of the City’s Chinatown.

The Chinatown statues did not even last 20 years as they are now being torn down.

Asian residents were offended by the fact that the dragonheads were looking downward which is considered disrespectful. Others cite the addition of the stereotypical symbols of a duck, a wok, and a calculator as part of the sculpture.

There are lessons for taxpayers.

First, when government builds art projects at taxpayer expense, you are putting very complicated and costly decisions in the hands of a few people. If the community has to raise the funds themselves, they are going through the tough work of creating and selling the project for each dollars they raise. You get a better art project.   The Chinatown failed experiment, lasted 19 years and cost taxpayers nearly a quarter million.

As we speak politicians are doling an a bonus $8 million to art projects.  They also are advancing a bill to spend $10 million in tax dollars to a mega-restaurant and $28 million to film companies.  This is not the role of of our tax dollars.

Second, the other reason these Chinatown dragon statues has been that they have been the target of constant vandalism. The Leftist riot culture has had the effect of wrecking just about every public art project or memorial in Portland.  This is the other reasons these Chinatown statues had to be removed.

The Taxpayers Association of Oregon last year did an anatomy of scene take on a video taken in Portland’s Chinatown.

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