A $250,000 Usain Bolt statue to mount in Florida. City Commissioner thinks statue is ‘a waste of taxpayer’s money’

A monument of the legendary fastest man in the world Usain Bolt will be erected in Miramar, Florida.

According to Yahoo Life, the statue is a nod to diversity in South Florida. Through the years, hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans have made their home across the tri-county region, and Miramar also has a burgeoning number of families with ties to Jamaica. The bill for the statue will be paid in four installments to artist Basil Watson, who has been written about in Caribbean media and lauded by local officials.

“We wanted to make sure we had a world-class Olympian as part of the art in public places” efforts, said Alexandra Davis, a Miramar city commissioner. The statue will be placed at the Ansin Sports Complex at 10801 Miramar Blvd., and Davis hopes Bolt’s statue will help draw more international, world-class athletic events in the region.

The statue will cost Miramar taxpayers a quarter-million dollars.

City Commissioner Winston Barnes calls Bolt “a phenomenon,” but thinks spending $250,000 for the statue is ‘ridiculous’ and “a waste of taxpayer money.” Miramar isn’t like Moscow, which has an Usain statue of its own. Miramar is not attracting international tourists, he said~Yahoo Life.

“Attaching ourselves to monuments or icons is not going to make us a 24/7 city,” Barnes said. “We’re not a tourist city — come on.” The money could be better spent for “the larger community” of Miramar residents, he said. “I do not think we have the luxury to try to create monuments of icons simply at the fancy of elected officials.”

It is not yet disclose exactly what the statue will look like nor what the pose will be.