To the Editor:
I noticed in the recent Star Herald that I think the Timeline for the Native American Museum doesn’t go back far enough. I noticed also that there is now to be a “feasibility study” for the museum.
Forgive me for not knowing if the jargon matches, but I seem to recall that a museum consulting firm was paid big bucks to do such a feasibility study long before the museum even was edging toward reality. (Maybe for people who deal with such things regularly, this initial study went by another name, but it was to look at the pro’s and con’s of building the museum, hence its feasibility.)
A meeting was held at the new Holmes facility to discuss this first study and basically it was a Yay Yay Yah meeting because about the only people attending were those with vested interests, economic or otherwise, in building it. At most three, and that is stretching it, as I was one of them, “ordinary citizens” attended. And thusly the museum was “approved.”
So, the Timeline for the museum goes back further than indicated in the Star Herald. As well, the insightful question to ask about the museum is which persons and/or interests had enough of the Mayor’s ear to even kickstart the initial quite expensive study. That is where investigative reporting would start the real Timeline, with those yanking the Mayor by the ear or tail to accommodate them. The impression I got was that the museum was sort of “sprung” on a totally unsuspecting totally uninvolved (except for vested interests) populace.
To me it seemed sort of like “Hello, guess what citizens, you are getting a Native Amerian Museum, and we’re (the vested interests) are going to totally re-design downtown to accommodate it, and thanks for being the malleable, sucker populace, which is allowing a major project to be foisted off on you without protest—a project you could frankly care less about, in light of all the other dire existing needs in the City and County that we’re totally ignoring.
And while I don’t know if any developments in this have occurred in the past few months, think once again how when this issue recently arose, it was claimed that “there is no way we can keep the Senior Citizens Volunteer Center operating.” In other words, tourists are more important than the people striving to make Kosciusko their home day in and day out. Yes, I know, mythical tourists are supposed to bring in mythical dollars and create mythical jobs, but the reality has never supported this endeavor.
I can predict though, that with vested interests once again doing a feasibility study, once again it will be deemed feasible. And there will never be a sidewalk you can walk down on Huntington without walking in a ditch or walking in the road. And is there yet a solution to the vaporization of the Senior Citizens Volunteer Center?
Beverly E. Johnson
Kosciusko
