Tam-tams ablaze

>> City defends floodlights installed by Sir Georges-Étienne Cartier statue

by CRAIG SEGAL

The three-month-old floodlights that light up the Tam-tam square like a football field may be the fault of a soft-spoken man named Dinu Bumbaru.

Impressed by the dazzling job the mayor did lighting up the outside of city hall as a millennial gift to its citizens, Bumbaru, head of Heritage Montreal, got an idea. Why not light up the big angel statue at the foot of Mount Royal? The statue is important, after all. The tourist-friendly heavyweight commemorates Sir Georges-Étienne Cartier, federalist protector of French-Canadian culture.

In February 2000, Bumbaru wrote the mayor a letter asking if they could join forces on similar lighting for the statue. The city never consulted him. And Bumbaru is not lit up by the results.

"Lighting the monument is not just lighting it with wattage," says Bumbaru. "It's an art. It's true that the monument is lit, but at the same time it's quite gross. If you want to do artistic lighting, then you have to do it with talent. It has to be very refined." Bumbaru says the city never answered his letter.

The company that lit up city hall, Éclairage Publique, also was not contacted by the city for the job, according to a representative. He refused to be named because his company is currently working on a $1-million-plus contract to light up a dozen buildings around the Notre Dame Basilica.

The rep says the city may have opted for floodlights to save money. The millennial city hall contract was part of a bigger $1.3-million Old Montreal job, with the city hall portion costing between $300,000 and $400,000: a far cry from the $31,168 the Tam-tam floods cost the city.

Les Amis de la Montagne (Friends of the Mountain), a private group dedicated to Mount Royal's preservation, don't like the lights either. "We have two concerns," says Friend Gabrielle Korn. "One, that the lighting should be done in an artistic fashion and not as stadium lighting. And two, we wonder whether it distracts from the cross's light [at the top of the mountain]. It's too bad it wasn't done in a more artistic fashion."

Bumbaru speculates the city may have installed the lights themselves for security, a possibility strongly endorsed by the Citizens Opposed to Police Brutality.

"That idea of lighting up the monument is a heap. You can't be anywhere near there," says COPB member Bernard Cooper. "The paradox is you've got these nice outdoor spaces, and this city administration that's trying to make it unpleasant for people.

"It's a symptom of an increased security obsessiveness, like the city's license to fly helicopters through the Plateau. If they want to be security obsessed, there's a price: a lower standard of living." Cooper says the lights are part of a security crackdown at the Tam-tam square.

Police say there has been no crackdown at the mountain. A Station 19 cop says the lights don't help police do their work. And police communications officer Brigitte Barabé says lights are for the public, not the police. "Lights make people feel more secure," she says.

The city's public works spokesperson Claudette Lalonde says the city erected the lights following citizens' requests and damage inflicted on the existing lights by St. Jean Baptiste rioters. She says there are no plans to remove the floodlights.