Controversy surrounds six new murals in Detroit
(CBS DETROIT) - There's controversy about who should pay for six new murals, aimed at sprucing up Detroit before the 2024 NFL Draft.
A New York-based company already painted the murals, but the city council says they never approved this plan, and now they're refusing to pay $215,000 for the work.
Detroit Planning Director Antoine Bryant says almost all of the buildings with the murals are privately owned.
At Tuesday night's city council meeting, Councilwoman Angela Whitfield Calloway asked Bryant why the property owners don't pay for the work.
"I would hope that whoever's buildings were improved and embellished with these murals would be willing to pay the city back for having these murals, because obviously, they approved these other murals. Because I can't imagine a building owner allowing a muralist to come in and paint anything on their building, so there had to have been some conversations prior to the murals being installed or painted on the buildings. And hopefully, those building owners understand. Mr. Illitch is one of the building owners. I think he owns one or two of the buildings where the murals have been painted maybe we can send him a bill."
CBS Detroit reached out to the art company that painted the murals for a response.