$1.7 million to refurbish murals! Most of them are eyesores best left to decay, and most don't enable new "breakthrough" artists to design a thing. To me, civic mural commissions have always had a questionable bang-for-buck return with regard to arts programming--they absorb precious resources that could best be expended on other things. They're also money pits: murals require constant refurbishment. Few careers are enhanced by them, it's the same five people, over and over.

$1.7 million is about $1.69 million more than the City spends on, say, classical music. This year, the City's Cultural Affairs Department suddenly stopped funding "Sunday's Live", the longest running live chamber music broadcast in the US, a program that gave up-and-coming musicians a chance to perform live on radio for over thirty years. But the freeways will be lined with distracting art which, if it were effective at all, and actually got motorists to want to look at it, would be very hazardous. Amazing.

I guess you meant this to be a comment on the murals posting, two below this one...