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Turnover on Mason City Council and a design that was thought to be too pricey were among factors dooming the downtown icon.

Edward Casagrande, the artist who won the contest to design the icon for the downtown plaza, is scratching his head this week after the Downtown Committee of Council shelved plans for the plaza centerpiece.

He said his word is his bond, and now he can no longer keep the promise he made to the residents.

"My biggest heartache of this whole thing — because the tower can come and go, politics can do what they want — it's tax money. They can raise the project, or they can kill the project," he said. "But I was the one that went out and promised the people of Mason this beautiful icon about their community. I'm the guy that went out there and lavished this community about the possibility of this sculpture that was completely celebrating the city of Mason."

Casagrande sketched a clock tower with a water feature that would have told different stories and reflect the four sides of Mason from the historical downtown to the high-tech community growing to the south.

The city was supposed to hold meetings to refine some aspects of the proposed icon, but those meetings never happened. Instead, the city and Casagrande and his lawyer, Joe Platt, got bogged down in a professional services agreement that Platt said was vague and incomplete.

Mason's attorney, Jeff Forbes, said he agrees the contract they used was modeled after documents they normally use for architects and other professionals who get a job, do the work and move on. Mason isn't used to working with artists, where intellectual property issues come into play.

Casagrande said if they had ever reached the refinement stage, he could have redesigned all the city wanted and gotten the piece to a price the city could live with. He believed he designed it to the $300,000 price tag. However, some correspondence between the parties show the city received some information that the design would have cost too much.

The changeover on city council and the downtown committee after the November election also came into play. Former Mayor Char Pelfrey and former councilman Matt Kline and Councilman Todd Wurzbacher were excited about Casagrande's design and wanted to move it along quickly before their tenure on the committee terminated.

The committee members

now are council members Christine Shimrock, who chairs the committee, and Don Prince and Victor Kidd, as well as members of staff and the community.

Mayor Tom Grossmann and council member Tony Bradburn have voiced misgivings about the cost of the icon

"This all happened as the council was changing," Forbes said. "Some of the new council members sort of asked the question, 'Is this really what we want to do down there?' That is how we ended up where we are."

Casagrande, who works on many large artistic endeavors, said he is worried about his reputation and some of the comments council made. But Forbes said no one has faulted him or his talent and abilities.

"I've really tried to make it clear that this is not about Mr. Casagrande's reputation," Forbes said. "We've been trying to preserve that. We started down a path for professional services agreement and as we tried to resolve that, the emphasis on the downtown project sort of changed."

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.

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