Friday, February 24, 2006

History is important, even if you didn't like it in high school.

I just read an article in today's Deseret Morning News about Tom Tolman wanting to find a place to permanently house Bountiful City's history museum. I think this is a very worthy goal. Many of this nation's great leaders have understood the importance of preserving historical items.
One part of this article troubled me though. Mayor Joe Johnson is quoted as saying, "If you don't have money, it's just a dream," Johnson said. "I mean you can talk about a lot of things, but if you don't have money, you're just wasting oxygen and my time."
I know it's possible that the reporter took this quote out of context, however, I still wonder if Mayor Joe would have liked the other City Councils in South Davis County to have said the same thing when he came pitching his idea about a South Davis Recreation Center. Instead of saying "Go find the money for it, then we'll listen." Many of the City Council members at the time saw that Mayor Joe's dream could become a reality.
I encourage all elected officials of this state to realize how important it is to preserve history.

1 comment:

Former Centerville Citizen said...

Thad, thank you so much for writing a post about this.

The Centerville Historic Sites Committee is making a proposal to restore the Whitaker Museum to its historic state and to make it a living history museum. With help from the State Historic Preservation Office, we've estimated that the project should cost no more than $100K in grant money from the National Trust and a matching $100K from Centerville City.

What's funny is that some people have balked at the idea of spending $100K on a museum, but it's ok to spend more than 20 MILLION dollars on a rec center.

IMHO, it's hypocritical for city governments to support rec center projects that cost 20 million dollars, but not museum projects that would cost 1% of that.