From The New York Times:
As a gleaming new police and fire headquarters took shape last year in Quincy, Mass., Mayor Thomas Koch prepared to unveil what he considered a perfect finishing touch: towering bronze statues of St. Michael and St. Florian, patron saints of emergency responders, to stand at the building’s entrance.
Intent on his vision of municipal grandeur, Mr. Koch had not sought approval from voters before he commissioned an artist in Italy to craft the 10-foot figures, at a cost of $850,000 in city funds, and booked their trans-Atlantic passage. Their arrival in Quincy, a diverse city of 100,000 just south of Boston, did not go exactly as he had hoped.