[Vision2020] Thank you . . .

[Moscow Cares]

Thank you, Jenny Kostroff (Executive Director, 1912 Community Center) and the rest of the crew, for restoring one of Moscow's premier historical landmarks at . . .

"The 1912 Community Center"
http://www.1912center.org

Courtesy of today's (April 3, 2017) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

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Our View - Redo: Rent-free at 1912 Center will cost taxpayers
By Murf Raquet, for the editorial board
Editor's note: In this April 6, 2002, editorial, we questioned the city continuing to spend money on the remodeling and operations of the 1912 Center. Fifteen years later, we are glad the city and our leaders saved the historic building ... after all, without it, where would the League of Women Voters of Moscow hold its meetings?

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The 1912 high school has been a thorn in the city of Moscow's side since it was purchased in the mid-1990s.

That irritant went a little deeper Monday when the City Council decided to lease two rooms in the building at no cost. As a result, taxpayers will pick up the tab for maintenance of those areas in addition to what they now pay.

We believe the city acted in haste.

We are in the middle of a budget crisis with cuts to many city programs. It is obscene to expect taxpayers to pay more.

We don't begrudge the groups space to meet and have events.

Our complaint is with the council that obligated the city to remodel the building five years ago. They promised not to use taxpayer money on the building. Operating funds were to come from rent-paying tenants.

It's going to happen as we predicted in earlier editorials.

Money has run out with more than two-thirds of the building to complete. A Boise firm has been hired to raise additional funds to complete the building. It remains to be seen whether they can collect the millions needed to complete the three-story center.

This year, the 1912 Center will cost taxpayers at least $21,000 for maintaining the building. The city justified use of the money because it was city space they were maintaining and taxpayers usually pay for that.

Now that amount will jump to an estimated $43,000 next year. The increase isn't for maintaining city space. It's for the free-lease areas. With that use, the city has lied.

We were sold a bill of goods when 1912 representatives, including council members, painted an optimistic picture about the old high school.

Their remodel-it-and-they-will-rent-it spiel was good for a few years. Now it's echoes off those same brick walls.

We have to ask the City Council how many more groups will be offered free rent? How many more spaces will taxpayers subsidize?

The answers may not be a pleasant ones given the council's history of continued support for the 1912 boondoggle.

The council has refused to make a funding decision on the 1912 Center since it was purchased.

That decision can't be put off any longer. But remember, for every dollar the city puts into the center is a dollar that comes from another program or service.

We would hate to see money wasted like that with more than five miles of unpaved street within the city limits.

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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