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A 1912 correction



Visionaries, the latest misstatement by the Daily News about the 1912 Center provoked this response on my part.  Other errors also deserve comment, but this seemed the most egregious.
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Editor:

In primitive societies, stories told around the campfire become embellished over the years and eventually assume the status of myth, or even religion.

In Moscow, critics of the 1912 Center like to tell each other what a bad idea it is. After awhile they start believing their own tall tales.

Murf Raquet’s editorial of April 6 asserts that five years ago the city council “promised not to use taxpayer money on the building. Operating funds were to come from rent-paying tenants.”

Raquet may actually believe that myth. After all, he’s heard it repeated by Vera White and other elders of his tribe. But it’s not true.

The promise was that city taxes would not be used to buy and renovate the building. That promise has been kept.

As to operating costs, the plan has always been that some would come from rents and user fees, and some from taxes. The mix is still under discussion, but it was never intended to be all or nothing.

I challenge the Daily News, with all its investigative resources, to find even one statement by one city official saying city taxes would not be used in operating the 1912 Center. If you can’t produce that statement, let’s hear no more about that mythical promise.

But wait, there’s a catch. You have to find that statement in the city’s minutes, contracts, or other official records, not the pages of the Daily News. Some of us have learned we can’t believe everything we read in this newspaper.

Jack R. Porter




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