There is no question that public art — such as the murals installed in Falconer, Sherman and Westfield, with a fourth coming to Dunkirk this fall — is a nice addition to the public sphere.

The question isn’t the art or its value, it’s who is picking up the tab and who’s doing the organizing.

We respect the point county legislator Fred Larson made during a recent legislature meeting. The legislature had, indeed, spoken clearly when it chose not to approve $100,000 in occupancy tax funding for the public art program which, at the time in December 2023, included murals and giant chairs that would be placed throughout the county.

The Paint CHQ program didn’t end up using county funding. County Planning Department employees found other sources of funding to carry out the mural project – though county staff time was spent on the project. Larson argues that staff time is a waste of county resources.

We agree.

Mark Geise, county IDA director and county Planning and Economic Development director, replied to Larson’s criticism by saying, “You say, ‘murals, poo poo murals.’ But you know what? I went to those events and I saw the excitement in the community and how grateful they were. And it’s not going to solve it but it’s one little piece. We keep doing stuff like that, our main streets improve because I’ll tell you, businesses, they want to invest in a place where things are happening, where they don’t drive through the downtown and see boarded up windows and closed down businesses and dilapidated houses.”

County time and money spent on the murals is time not spent elsewhere. That’s the concept of opportunity cost that most of us learned about in high school economics. The county could have played a role behind the scenes helping secure the money for Paint CHQ before spinning the mural project off to volunteers or existing arts organizations. Staff time used on Paint CHQ is a use of county taxpayers’ money unless they were working for free on Paint CHQ. We’re pretty sure they weren’t.

Geise and arts supporters say businesses want to invest in a place where things are happening and where they don’t see boarded up windows and closed down businesses. We agree. But had we spun the mural program off to volunteer arts organizations once the funding was secured, we could spend more county staff time working on the boarded up windows, closed down businesses, dilapidated houses and the homeless.

The art isn’t the problem. The investment of county staff time and taxpayer money is the problem.