River Walk artwork, is now the right time?

At the council meeting on April 20th, I was impressed, at first, with council member Malpezzi. At the beginning of the meeting he had come up with a creative way to keep city staff from having to take a 10% pay cut. For this I applaud him.
Later in the meeting the topic of the art work for the River Walk came up. At this point council member Malpezzi wanted to spend money even though there had been a discussion on the financial state of the city. During the artwork discussion, council member Ingram suggested that they wait a couple of months to see where the city is financially before committing to the art work. To me this was a great suggestions but council member Malpezzi was not interested.
Could it be that council member Malpezzi’s motives at the beginning of the meeting were only motivated by his support of the art work for the River Walk? It seems to me that art work should be the last thing that the council should spend monies on. I know it has been budgeted but still, is it the right thing to do? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.