BANGOR, Maine — A proposal to build Babe the Blue Ox adjacent to Bangor’s 31-foot-tall statue of Paul Bunyan moved one step closer to fruition Tuesday, but the project still faces multiple design reviews and possible opposition from at least one councilor.
The City Council’s Business & Economic Development Committee voted 3-1 on Tuesday to move forward approval for a conceptual design for Babe as proposed by artist J. Normand Martin, who designed the Bunyan statue when it was installed in 1959.
According to city policy, if the full council approves the design concept during its meeting Monday, the proposal will move back to the Bangor Commission on Cultural Development’s Arts in Public Places Subcommittee for a detailed design review.
If the council approves that recommendation, the process will continue with a final design review and approval. Later design phases will take into account maintenance expenses, materials to be used and location.
It remains unclear when the city ultimately will approve or reject the statue. According to downtown coordinator Caitlin Brooke, the city has not yet used procedures for evaluating public art adopted by the council in 2007.
“It’s really dependent on how fast the organization moves,” she said, referring to Build Babe in Bangor.
Meanwhile, J. Normand Martin Jr. — son of J. Normand Martin and head of Build Babe in Bangor, the group proposing the Babe statue — said the group is putting off its original goal, to install Babe by July 4, 2016, and now feels the statue won’t be completed until the fall of 2016 at the earliest.
That delay comes after the group learned that fabricating the steel and fiberglass statue would take months, not weeks as originally thought, he said. The group is holding off on raising funds for the statue until it receives final approval from the city.
During Tuesday’s committee meeting, Councilor Gibran Graham, who cast the only dissenting vote, echoed public concerns about potential maintenance costs to the city and questioned whether Babe was relevant.
“Babe the Blue Ox was a blue ox so named from the blue snows of the Midwest. That was his origin point. That’s where he came from,” Graham said. “While after that point, they were inseparable, Babe was not a part of any of the Northeast adventures of Paul Bunyan.”
Councilor Joe Baldacci responded that Bunyan without Babe was “like having Jack without the beanstalk,” and Councilor David Nealley said constructing Babe would be like “hitting the refresh button for that iconic figure of Paul Bunyan.”
Meanwhile, J. Normand Martin Jr. argued that Babe represents an opportunity to remember the city’s forestry and agricultural past as well as recognize how Bangor became a service hub for the region.
Build Babe in Bangor has not provided cost estimates for Babe, but J. Normand Martin Jr. has said the group plans to build the statue entirely with donated funds. City officials say the majority of maintenance of the Bunyan statue was paid for through private contributions.