vision2020@moscow.com: Whitworth Building
Whitworth Building
Timothy S. Hillebrand, Ph.D. (thillebr@moscow.com)
Tue, 21 Oct 1997 08:12:13 -0700
Congratulations to Pam Palmer for her "compromise" resolution last night =
at the City Council meeting. The measure which proposed purchasing the =
Whitworth building for $130,000 was passed unanimously. Unanimously, =
that is, with the exception of Tony Johnson, who, because of asbestos =
concerns, and because of "his conservative roots" was compelled to vote =
NO. Apparently conservatives can no longer be in favor of historic =
preservation and community centers. The City Council, however, did not =
allow any discussion from the floor although there were quite a number =
of people there prepared to speak. One of the questions I am curious =
about is why the tax payers are being asked to pay for the building =
twice. Because they paid for it once, it already belongs to the tax =
payers. What right does the Board of Education have to ask the tax =
payers to pay for it again? There is something very wrong here. I =
certainly hope that the Board of Education accepts the City's offer for =
$130,000 because they are lucky to be getting anything. They are also =
lucky not to be strapped with the responsibility of maintaining the =
building until it sells. It will be interesting to see the reaction of =
the Board of Education to the City's counter-offer. As you may have seen =
in last night's paper, the Friends of Moscow Library offered $5000 to =
the Whitworth Building preservation fund because we felt that if the =
library could have space in the building it would save the city expense =
in expanding the library, which is long overdue. However, we had to =
withdraw the offer when we learned that there could be no strings =
attached to donations. We were led to believe that space would be made =
available to the library after many months of meetings on planning uses =
for the building. Unfortunately, this is not the case. For all anyone =
knows, it could be made into a police station. See you at the next Board =
of Education meeting, 10/28 at 7:00 PM at Moscow High School.
Tim
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