City footing 60-67% of Hummert memorial cost, continues to fund raise

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Sandblasting the inscriptions is complete on the Ryan Hummert Memorial, now all it needs is the bronze sculpture of Maplewood firefighter Ryan Hummert to be installed. The city continues to take donations for the cost of the memorial, Maplewood City Manager Marty Corcoran said by email Thursday.

The cost, passed by city council in March 2015, is not to exceed $334,471. See the meeting minutes.

Corcoran said that at this point from 33 to 40 percent of the cost of the project has come from private donations. The city continues to fund raise and the donations continue to come in. When the memorial is completed marble squares will be sold which will also be used to offset the cost.

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42 COMMENTS

  1. A couple more comments on the memorial:

    There is a grammatical error sandblasted into the “Fireman’s Prayer” on one side of the pedestal where the Hummert statue will stand. “It’s” is used instead of its.

    What’s more, the workmanship is a bit alarming. The stones are not joined properly – lots of gaps and cracks that have not been sealed.

    Perhaps this will be done at a later date. I certainly hope so. As previously mentioned, I think the memorial is too big and in the wrong place. But it’s here to stay, so let’s at least try to get it right.

    • Ugh! Good catch, Steve. I also have seen the shoddy workmanship that you described- seams don’t line up, corners aren’t symmetrical, and the entire back wall has some kind of weird stain. Maybe it will all be fixed? Let’s hope so.

  2. Although I didn’t know Ryan, I have the greatest respect for him, and wonder whether he would have even wanted this. Seems like a donation towards improved mental health treatment would have been more appropriate.

  3. In addition to the very obvious issues about how this memorial was speed-tracked through and how the story of its funding changed over time, there remains the question of how it is decided who ‘deserves’ a memorial.

    One post above characterizes Mr. Hummert as one of “your finest fire/ems professionals”, when in fact he was two weeks on the job and this was his first call; that kind of claim actually insults other EMS and fire professionals. Several people have mentioned his “sacrifice”. I believe the term ‘sacrifice’ refers to something done or given consciously and deliberately. In the case of the murder of Mr. Hummert, no one yet knew that there was a shooter in the house; no one had yet knowingly or deliberately put himself or herself in harm’s way up to that time. Yes, as I’m sure some will point out in full hyperbolic fashion, all fire fighters put themselves at risk in the course of their jobs, but that only underscores that a memorial to such a random event seems odd. With all due respect, Mr. Hummert didn’t do anything extraordinary that day. Would there have been a dramatic and unprecedented push to erect a similar monstrosity if a neighbor – a regular citizen – had been shot while getting out or his or her car nearby?

    What about all the other people in Maplewood who have done something that could be described by general standards as ‘heroic’ (e.g. serving with honor in the military; saving lives as and EMS professional; truly and knowingly risking their own lives as firefighters and police)? I suspect that Maplewood could boast of many, many more people among its citizenry whose lives and actions would be similarly deserving of such a public honor. But, we only have one former Mayor who apparently retains the political clout to get public funding for an over-blown personal project – erected on public land.

    I recall reading somewhere that this memorial had been re-purposed as a memorial to all fire fighters of Maplewood, but now it’s clear from all the poorly composed and over-written text monument that this gouge in the park is for one person who just happened to be the son of a former Maplewood mayor. This kind of old-school, back-room, under-the-table dealing is an embarrassment to Maplewood; the council members and everyone else who allowed, proposed, supported and worked the little political machine to get it done should be held in the full light of public scrutiny. There is a growing list of posts above that indicate that the city and its officials don’t want to respond to questions that are emerging, and that in itself suggests a greater need to investigate the processes that underlie this memorial.

    Whether one supports or disapproves of this memorial, or has an opinion somewhere in between, it seems reasonable to expect that everyone would prefer a more transparent process with accountability beforehand, rather than allowing only for post hoc criticism.

    I suspect that the city officials who drove or supported this thing will be less and less inclined to stand proudly behind their actions and decisions.

    An appropriately somber memorial to Mr. Hummert, if it was so strongly desired to add something to the fact that the park had already been named for him, could have been constructed in the northwest corner of the park, which is better suited for quiet reflection. Again, the old-school, self-aggrandizing (after all, isn’t this really more about the former Mayor’s wishes?) approach to this melodramatic slab is more of an embarrassment in its brute and impersonal style. I look forward to the day when more forward-thinking and rational city officials decide to cut ties with the past way of doing things, and eventually remove what will soon become a graffiti-covered blight.

    • Sorry I can’t help myself dave….you’re an ass. If your house ever catches fire do us all a favor and dial 7-Eleven.

      • While it’s hard to argue with your eloquence, what specifically do you disagree with or find so objectionable? I assume your’re NOT a fireman…???!

        The Hummerts live in Fenton, apparently, as did Ryan. This memorial would, at best, be appropriate for cemetery, but not for a public park as a public memorial. As others have said, memorials to world luminaries (e.g. Gandhi, Churchill, Shakespeare, etc.) have been erected which are far less garish.

    • Dave — bravo to you. VERY well said, and I (along with many other residents of Maplewood) agree with you 100%.

    • My only comment, please check your facts. Ryan had been with the department for more than 2 weeks. I personally helped train him as a medic and worked closely with him and the restbof the department at the time. We worked together to save a man in May. Last time I checked, May to July is longer than 2 weeks.

      • Ryan Hummert was with the department for 10 months. Source: Quote from Fire Chief Terry Merrell in a 2008 CBS News article.

  4. The bigger issue at hand is the process to approve public art or public memorials needs improvement. Whether we are talking about this memorial, a veterans memorial, the BIG M, or any other proposed art, there will always be people who disagree with the design (and apparently make melodramatic statements). However, this should not deter MW from considering use of public money for memorials or art. Not every proposed project needs to be done, but the city council members, as elected representatives of the citizens, should continue to have the authority to vote on adding funding for a memorial or artistic project to the budget.

    That being said, the first step after coming up with the goal or purpose of the project is setting a budget. Private funds can be raised after the city has agreed upon what it is willing to spend. This memorial is a great example where the city approved the money with the expectation that most would be covered from private donors and made multiple comments suggesting a small undisclosed amount would be from the citizens. In reality it turned out to be much more.

    Secondly, since citizens are paying for the art or memorial, then citizens should have a say in the design. The current method of the city council taking creative control and making multiple changes to a single idea has shown to be ineffective. A design contest needs to be held and artists would state their price along with renderings. Citizens could then vote online or at city hall to narrow down the choices to some amount (probably top 2 or 3). At that point, the city council could make the final decision on which one to go with. It is important designers include the price in the proposal because it potentially allows a project to come in under budget and be a deciding factor if two designs are close. This allows the professionals to make the design and the people to have a say.

    This isn’t a perfect solution and may need some adjustment, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

  5. I have no problem with a memorial. I have no problem with money being spent on it. I have a huge problem with the design. Ugly and overdone.

  6. Let’s meet. How about tomorrow at noon at the Stone Spiral. Beth, GGerald, and everybody else who might be interested if you are free. We can talk about the memorial, or hopefully something else over coffee. I’ll be there.

  7. Ryan deserves a monument, but not this garish, ill-conceived, and poorly designed spectacle. What a waste.

  8. I live right across the street from the tragedy and was home all day on that July day. A very mentally ill person killed a young man, who was doing his duty. Ryan’s family and friends are, of course, devastated and will never recover. As a mother, I would want to honor my child in any way possible. I think a much more fitting and lasting memorial would be to use that money to set up a trust for a scholarship of some kind.
    AND, I totally agree that the residents of Maplewood should have been consulted and some sort of discussion should have taken place.

  9. I would of been nice to have a fountain or water feature that the children of our community could of used. Unfortunately, the planning for this memorial was already set. What did the Maplewood Park Board think? I would be nice to know what they recommended.

  10. One of the strangest signs of a strong and economically developing community is overpriced memorials or garish works of art. (Reference the “Stout Man” statue on Wydown road in Clayton.) So apart from everything else, welcome this as another milestone on Maplewood’s road to greatness. I fully expect houses around park have already begun to appreciate in value.

    …only half joking here.

  11. “I paid for it with my taxes”. Everything a certain commenter on this topic posts is complaining about the tax money- but your not disrespectful, right? Let’s face it- you’ve never been to a City Council Meeting and you probably never will. You’re comfortable as a spectator, eager to point fingers at the people actually performing public service, you know, people making decisions and leading our community. There is a public forum EVERY SINGLE MEETING that you can voice your concerns, annoyances, and express your detective-like theories about city finances. Regardless of how uninformed and/or unintelligent we are, they have to listen. It really isn’t a surprise that your upset, and complaining “I paid for it with my taxes” about dollars spent to honor someone who lost his life serving us, you, me, our community. You’re a freaking joke.

    Generally speaking, I don’t intend for my comments to be taken personally. I have a hard time understanding when our community stopped caring about this tragedy. The initial out pour of support was tremendous- did we all just forget the darkness and sadness? I guess some more than others. Does anyone really think we’d get an entire community to agree on what a monument should look like, the size, etc.? Can we let this grief stricken family and/or fellow firefighters have what they think is appropriate?
    It REALLY isn’t too much to ask.

    If you have forgotten, maybe this will jog a feeling…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4v9eUfW9p0

    • GGerald, I found your commentary to be over the line. There is no need for name calling. If you want to think about who is being disrespectful, think about how you have called me a “freaking joke”. I may not agree with your views but I would never insult you personally.

      You don’t know me. You don’t know how many meetings I have attended or will attend in the future. I strongly believe we are discussing two separate and very distinct issues. I, too, was living in the community back in July of 2008. It affected me deeply and I felt and continue to feel great sorrow for Ryan’s family. I have tremendous respect for him and all firefighters, police officers, and EMS workers who helped our community that day and every day. I have never “stopped caring about this tragedy”. To insinuate that I have is disrespectful and hurtful. As a citizen, I feel that I have the right to express my opinion about the DESIGN of the memorial. I don’t like the design, but I am eternally grateful for Ryan Hummert and all of those people who keep us safe every day. I believe there should be a memorial to him, I just don’t like the way this one looks. You have the right to disagree with me. However, you do not have the right to call me names.

      I’m sincere when I say that I hope we meet sometime. We may not agree on this issue but I believe we have a lot more in common than you think. For starters, we are passionate about this wonderful Maplewood community. We could “meet for coffee” sometime as another poster has stated. Two people from the same community with varying viewpoints meeting up to discuss our love for Maplewood and hopefully finding some common ground. To do this in honor of Ryan, what a fitting tribute to him, don’t you think?

    • GGerald — interesting that you feel compelled to lash out and attack a commenter for expressing a fact.

      Assuming “Beth” is a resident of Maplewood, it is a fact that she is financially contributing to the construction of the Ryan Hummert Memorial Plaza, whether or not she likes the design. Reading back through the comments thread on this page, it seems clear that Beth, and the majority of commenters, are supportive of a memorial to Ryan Hummert and simultaneously unhappy with the work that is being erected. This juxtaposition is rational, uncomplicated and ultimately innocuous.

      Why does it illicit an angry, personal attack?

      Design criticism associated with the Ryan Hummert Memorial Plaza (the thing) in Ryan Hummert Memorial Park (the place) has very little to do with Ryan Hummert (the person). My opinion, and I think this is representative of many of the other commenters, is that the Memorial Plaza is poorly designed. I think it is a sophomoric patchwork of highly diluted and dogmatic memorial signifiers. My opinion is that it is awkwardly sited and aggressively over-sized for the location. My opinion is that the design of the memorial pulls off an impressive hat trick of being simultaneously ominous and dull, overbaked and unrefined, physically muscular and conceptually feeble. My opinion is that its pidgin architectural vocabulary is predictable, messy and, perhaps worst of all, impersonal.

      You disagree? Your opinion is that it’s great? You think it is exactly what a dignified memorial should be? You think the location is ideal and it is sized appropriately? Fine. You’re entitled.

      You are not, however, entitled to belittle your neighbor. Is referring to your neighbor as “a freaking joke” representative of the kind of community in which you think we live?
      That’s uncalled for and wholly reactionary. It makes you seem mean-spirited and dim-witted, and you’re not those things, are you GGerald?

    • Why? Why should we continue to embrace the sadness and darkness Gerald. It’s terrible it happened, but we as a society need to move on and look to the future and not live in the past. Oh and we as a society should always question our government as it is there to serve the interest of the community not the interest of the few you named (the family, the firefighters, etc. You know all fifty of them).

  12. As a 20 year veteran of an EMS entity, I came to know Ryan Hummert, who also worked for us, as a fine upstanding young man and paramedic. As I now sit here retired reading the above e mail thread, it took me back to that fateful day when Ryan was shot. Ryan died serving your community, but I am, to say the very least, appalled at the majority of comments on this e mail thread. “What a waste of space!” “A generation from now, no one will remember!” “It’s good to honor the dead, but I think the sensitivities of the living should also have been considered.” Good God people…this is a “memorial” to one of your finest fire/ems professionals and all you can do is show your disdain rather than your respect! Instead of sullying his memory, think of Ryan, his family, his public safety co-workers and friends. You should turn off the negative rhetoric and turn on the positive by helping to raise money for this well deserved tribute!. My check is in the mail. How about yours?

    • I’m already paying for it with my taxes.
      Like others who have posted, I feel you are confusing two very different issues. No one is trying to disrespect or dishonor Ryan’s memory and the sacrifice he made. We are simply unhappy with the design of this memorial. It’s a question of aesthetics- NOT respect.

    • I disagree with you Larry. Why not save the money from the this boondoggle and invest that money into something that actually betters the community that Ryan died protecting? To create something like this is an insult to Ryan’s memory and what he died protecting. I don’t believe he gave his life so he could have a memorial built, I believe he died so that the community he served would be stronger from his sacrifice.

    • I’d rather write a check to support the efforts of our finest living fire/ems professionals than pay to forever immortalize one who befell an unforeseen tragedy, however terrible it was.

  13. When things get way off track, it is seldom if ever due to the plan being too simple.
    I saw many memorials and tombs last year . . . Churchill, Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela and the other statesmen memorialized in Parliament Square combined don’t have as much verbiage as this memorial does, nor do the eight statues there take up much more room. Shakespeare has but four lines on his tomb.
    Who he was and why he was important would have sufficed . . . as with introductions, movies and literature, good ones leave room for participation; bad ones try to answer every possible question.
    There seems to be a broad feeling that the Hummert Memorial is not a plus for Hummert Park. Moreover, I feel that, as citizens we come together and agree to be taxed for certain purposes. This seems to go far beyond what taxpayers agreed to.

  14. Wow, I love hearing the comments. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. I believe it’s too late for much change but I can’t think there is a tough lesson to be learned here. Honoring fallen heros or remembering events of the past should be community decisions with extreme transparency. Am I remembering this correctly, that the city financing for this project came from a budget surplus last year?

  15. Wbat a waste of open space in the park. A nice plaque would have been adequate. A generation from now no one will remember, but that huge concrete structure will be there. And only a handful of people really wanted this project. Cut you losses and tear it down.

  16. Were no adults in the room when this huge invasion to the park was proposed? And now we have to pay for it al$o?? It makes no sense to have such an inappropriate object in a play space for children and adults. I am particularly hurt about the project because I live halfway between the park and the atrocity (murder of Mr. Hummert, wounding of 2 policemen, arson of the perpetrator’s house and destruction of the adjacent house by that spread fire, perpetrator’s fiery truck launched into the front yard of the lady across the street). I hate being reminded of all that nastiness again and again no matter I walk east or west on Zephyr. It’s good to honor the dead. I think the sensitivities of the living should also have been considered.

    • Leah, I’m not sure this design was ever presented at a design and review board meeting. I’ve called city hall twice to get clarification but as of this afternoon, no one has returned my calls. To my knowledge, this design was never openly presented in any public forum. When it was presented at a city council meeting in March of 2015, the design was complete-members were only voting on the contractor and cost. (If one looks at the notes closely you can see the entire meeting lasted 10 minutes- and there was other business that night). To add to this poor design mess, we are paying for it. As a taxpayer, I find this highly objectionable.

  17. At this point, I am concerned that this will make maps of attractions like “Biggest Ball of Twine” and “World’s Largest Wax Mustache” only, our distinction will be “World’s Largest ClusterF&*k.” It’s smack dab in the middle of a playground but kids can’t play on it, it’s an eyesore and it looks like it was designed by a hoarder. (How about adding some strobe lights so it’s 24/7? What about a water feature?)

    I am stating this, not to be unkind, but because I’m hoping that someone in Maplewood City Hall will rethink this whole thing before it’s too late. People want to get up in arms about Prop Y, but why aren’t taxpayers screaming about this? We are talking $300,000! And it’s tacky.

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