City backtracks on City Hall paint

The City of Sisters is backing away from its decision to repaint City Hall.

According to City Manager Eileen Stein and Mayor Brad Boyd, it is not clear that the city council ever formally approved a color sample board with a darker sage green as they believed last week. The architect insists that the building was painted according to colors approved by the city.

In a letter to the city, architect Scott Steele wrote, "The design process we conducted with Eileen and other members of city staff finalized and approved the colors which were documented in the construction document

set."

"The question is how much of a fight do you want to get into over this," Mayor Boyd said.

The mayor said that about 25 percent of the people he's talked to hate the color; about 25 percent really like it and the rest don't think it's a major issue either way.

Steele has a theory about the strong reaction to the paint job.

"We believe because the building sat with the primer color so long that people really took notice when it was painted," Steele noted in his letter. "We think the building looks great and have had that reinforced by many Sisters residents we've asked about it. With that said, color is a very personal choice and opinions will always vary greatly."

Love it or hate it, nobody, Boyd said, seems to want the city to spend taxpayer's money to repaint the building. According to Stein, the original paint job cost just under $20,000.

Boyd noted, too, that repainting would delay landscaping the grounds, which is the city's next big project in the completion of City

Hall.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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