Back to ship shape

South Portland City Council considers how to care for the aging Liberty Ship Memorial at Bug Light.

Salt water and salty air have taken their toll on the Liberty
Ship Memorial at Bug Light Park in South Portland. The
City Council on Monday discussed repairs to the outer
“hull,” which carry a price tag of around $38,000. Work
to the inside displays was dropped from a proposal due to cost.

SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City Council will soon weigh anchor on the Liberty Ship Memorial, a 10-year-old steel structure located in Bug Light Park that's not exactly seaworthy, so to speak.

"There are a number of locations on the structure that are rusting out," said City Manager James Gailey at a council workshop session Monday. "It needs to be sandblasted and the entire thing should be primed and painted. … The salt air and salt spray really takes a number on metal structures like that down there, just a few feet away from the water line.”

But with repairs tagged at $37,718 – scaled back from an initial $70,000 project – and only a fraction of that available from a trust fund set up to maintain the memorial, councilors on Monday debated the merits of dipping into city reserves for the work against pushing for a capital campaign. In the end, they seemed to agree to a combination of the two, and Gailey is likely to include some funding in next year’s budget proposal.

Sponsored by the Portland Harbor Museum and dedicated in November 2001, the memorial recognizes the 30,000 men and woman of the New England Shipbuilding Corporation who churned out 266 cargo vessels of the so-called "liberty ship" design from two 60-acre yards in South Portland. The ships shuttled supplies across the Atlantic to aid Allied efforts during World War II and are widely credited with speeding defeat of the Nazis by racing American arms to the front lines.

Not long after South Portland accepted the monument, it also took on a $25,000 trust fund given by the widow of a shipyard worker to pay for long-term upkeep. However, that fund stipulates that only the interest earned on its principle can be spent.

"At this time," said Gailey, "only about $2,200 is available through this trust fund. That's a baby step and we kind of need a large step at this point."

The cost to repair the structure ­– which rang in last year at nearly $70,000 – is now expected to cost $37,718, based on the lowest qualified bid submitted in July for a scaled-back version of the project by Logan & Son Inc., of Portland. Plans include only work to the primary part of the monument, built to resemble the bow of a liberty ship. Repair to the information panels and surrounding concrete walls were cut after the 2010 bid came in higher than expected.

Gailey proposed paying for the repairs as part of next year’s capital improvements budget, using money drawn from the city's $9 million undesignated surplus. However, while councilors were unanimous in their admiration of the memorial, and what it represents, few were keen on dipping into city coffers to fund its rehabilitation.

"To me, this is a great project for a capital campaign," said Councilor Tom Blake, adding that, in his view, repair to worn educational displays on the site is more important that the mock hull built around them.

"There are ways we can raise this money," said Blake. "I think it would be good for the community to get behind something like this. If we just take money out of our undesignated fund balance, we'll have to do it again 10 years down the road. Let's build that endowment to fund those repairs in the future."

"It would be really easy to pull money out of undesignated funds, but what then?" asked Councilor Patti Smith, rhetorically. "It becomes a slippery slope."

"If we take on this project all on our own, we look like we are always there with open pockets," agreed Mayor Rosemarie De Angelis.

"It's great to be the recipient of a gift, but at the same time those gifts cost us," she said, causing Councilor Tom Coward to quip, “It’s the gift that keeps on taking.”

De Angelis urged the creation of a “Friends of the Liberty Ship Memorial” group to spearhead fundraising and oversee maintenance, adding that a similar group might be called for at the Military Service Memorial, located in Mill Creek Park, which she recently accepted on the city’s behalf.

"We have to think bigger on this, because this is not a one-time deal,” she said. “Although the Service Memorial is designed to be low maintenance, the Liberty Ship monument will need work every few years.”

But Councilor Jim Hughes took a different tact.

"When we accepted this, we didn't say, 'We'll take it but you paint it,'" he said. "We said, 'We'll take it, it's ours, thank you very much.' It would be helpful if people would volunteer to help us with this, but I don't think we have any legitimate right to tell anyone, ‘You have to paint this.’ Really, this is our responsibility. We have to do it.

"We're talking $30,000 out of mucho dollars [in the fund balance]," said Hughes. "That’s less than one-tenth of one percent of what we have in what is essentially a rainy-day fund. Well, this is a rainy day."

"I think it looks unsightly," agreed Councilor Tom Coward. "It's one of three things that is recognizably 'South Portland,' as seen from the ocean – there's Bug Light, Spring Point Ledge Light and the Liberty Ship Memorial. I think we owe it to ourselves to keep it looking nice."

Coward stumped on behalf of Blake's proposal for a capital campaign, but also backed ponying up the needed money for initial repairs, "so we don't have an eyesore down there through the next tourist season."

Because the general consensus on the council appeared to favor Coward’s two-pronged approach, Gailey said the item likely will reappear again as a budget item next spring. The work will be done at that time, he said. According to Tim Gato, assistant director of parks and public works, Logan will to honor its bid price at that time.