TENINO — The founder of the Spirit of America Foundation who created a 9/11 memorial is upset that the sculpture has been rejected again.
John Jackson of Tenino had hoped the monument would be installed near the Capitol in Olympia. That plan was rejected by the state Department of Enterprise Services on the basis that it was of national, not state, significance, he said. A proposal to put the sculpture in a Kirkland park was rejected last week by the city council after disapproving comments were posted in an online survey. Some said it was too negative for a park and that it was unattractive.
The monument displays four bronze figures — a firefighter, a flight attendant, a business woman and a member of the military — holding hands in a circle. The sculpture includes steel from the World Trade Center and concrete from the Pentagon.
Jackson told The Chronicle newspaper that the sculpture received positive comments on a tour of Eastern Washington, but he thinks people in Western Washington are too self-absorbed.
“Over 550,000 people have seen it in the eastern part of the state and it gets overwhelming support. Over here there seems to be a lot of morons,” Jackson said. “I think it’s a me, me, me kind of attitude in the country right now. People are so self-centered, they don’t really understand what the memorial is. They make it into something they can vilify.”
The Kirkland City Council rejected the sculpture proposal spearheaded by resident Maureen Baskin, even though the city’s arts commission and parks department approved the plan and location in Juanita Beach Park.
More than 80 percent of the comments about the sculpture in the online survey were negative. Some wrote that 9/11 happened on the East Coast and the memorial is too painful to have in a park where children play.
“We did a survey, we got the results, the results told us what direction our citizens wanted to go,” said council member and Deputy Mayor Penny Sweet. “So regardless of my own disappointment, I think the path was clear.”
For the past year, Spirit of America Memorial Foundation Executive Director Dave Lewis has toured the sculpture across Eastern Washington. At least four cities there are competing for the sculpture, each willing to pay $12,500 to $30,000 for a proper spot, he said.
