A 1912 correction

[Jack Porter <jporter@moscow.com>]

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.
***
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