-Caveat Lector-
> Library Cad
> Bill Clinton wants to build his library in Little Rock. Will
> Little Rock let him?
>
> By Erica Werner
> Posted Thursday, August 19, 1999, at 4:30 p.m. PT
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> You'd think that a city would be thrilled to name one of
> its streets after the most famous person who ever walked (or, in
> this case, took a midnight "jog") down it, but that's not how it
> works in Little Rock, Ark. Late last month, sign-wavers and
> activists mobbed city hall while the city board considered
> whether to rename the street where the William Jefferson Clinton
> Presidential Library will be located "President Clinton Avenue."
> Hecklers offered derisive amendments: "Impeachment Avenue" was
> proposed. But the city board eventually compromised, renaming
> just the few blocks of Markham Street around the library after
> the president--a plan the mayor said he came to embrace after
> asking himself, "What would Jesus do?" After a bit of
> fussing from radio talk show hosts and newspaper columnists, the
> street-name dust-up blew over, but it's one of the few
> controversies connected with the Clinton Presidential Library
> that has. Since Little Rock beat out Hope and Hot Springs for the
> library in November 1997, city policies from sales taxes to zoo
> funding have been tangled up in Clinton and the building that
> will be his legacy. As one local columnist noted, in Little Rock,
> even if they say it's not about Clinton, it's about Clinton.
>
>
> <Picture><Picture: F>ew Little Rockers dispute that a world-class
> library building will be a boon to a town where the finest
> example of modern architecture is the TCBY Tower, and the
> principal tourist attractions are quilt shows and a building that
> had a cameo in Gone With the Wind (not to mention the hotel rooms
> where Clinton propositioned women). But just as Little Rock
> residents are embarrassed by Central High, the discomfiting
> monument to desegregation and the town's other claim to history,
> some are queasy about celebrating their not-so-favorite son.
> After all, Little Rock had hardly won the library when the
> Lewinsky scandal broke and a vast new field of inquiry revealed
> itself to Little Rock wiseacres: What's going to be in this
> lie-brary anyhow? A cigar and a dress? Oral histories?
>
> <Picture>TODAY IN SLATE<Picture><Picture><Picture>
> What Warren Beatty Wants
>
> Clinton Library Follies
>
> Diary of a Sorority Girl
>
> Prudie: Cat-Sitters Who Love Too Much
>
>
>
>
> <Picture>MSN links<Picture><Picture>
> Calculator: Are you fiscally fit?
>
> George W. Bush limits drug use denial
>
>
>
>
>
> <Picture>
>
> <Picture: B>ut the library has provoked Little Rock not just
> because it's a litmus test about Clinton. Even some Clinton fans
> have a bad taste in their mouths about the way the Little Rock
> board of directors arranged to pay for the 28-acre site. Private
> donors will fund the $80 million to $125 million library, but
> city officials agreed to deliver construction-ready land. And
> after recovering from the initial euphoria over winning the big
> prize, Mayor Jim Dailey and Co. realized they had to find $15
> million to buy and clear the property. For a city with a
> $100 million budget, that's a jawbreaker, but officials had made
> a commitment. They hit upon the idea of issuing "parks revenue
> bonds," which didn't require voter approval, and pledging
> revenues from the city's golf courses, parks, and zoo to pay them
> down. The problem: Parks revenue bonds can only fund parks. Is a
> library a park? That depends on your definition of the word
> "park." The city called the library a "presidential park," and
> that took care of it. (The plan to take money from the
> Little Rock zoo is another saga. For reasons too Byzantine to
> explain, it's the only unaccredited big zoo in the nation, and it
> could use a cash infusion. City officials are incredibly
> sensitive to the charge that they are buying Clinton land with
> money that should go to feeding the giraffes. When the city's
> newly hired zoo director came to town for a meet-and-greet
> recently, reporters were warned in no uncertain terms that he was
> not to be asked about the library.)
>
>
> <Picture><Picture: C>hamber of Commerce types welcomed this
> parks-bond trick, but other members of the populace were not so
> gratified, among them 66-year-old Nora Harris, a self-described
> "retired housewife." Harris sued the city, claiming the library
> land deal is an illegal tax because the city will have to raid
> the general fund to make up for lost parks revenue. A Pulaski
> County Chancery Court judge ruled in the city's favor in June,
> but Harris plans to appeal her case to the state Supreme Court.
> She has vowed to pursue the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, or at
> least until she runs out of money. Harris isn't the only
> one taking the city to court. Local developer Eugene Pfeifer III,
> a vocal opponent of the library, owns a piece of property in the
> presidential park and promises to fight the city's attempt to
> take his property by eminent domain.
>
>
> <Picture><Picture: Get Slate delivered!><Picture: Illustration by
> Robert Neubecker> <Picture><Picture: A>nd then there's everyone
> else in the city. When the mayor proposed a one-cent sales tax to
> shore up Little Rock's frayed budget, the city revolted.
> Opponents such as Harris and Pfeifer argued loudly that the city
> was forecasting a deficit because it is saddled with debt voters
> didn't approve, to fund a library they didn't request, for the
> president who didn't inhale. City officials squealed at that
> contention--the sales tax plan didn't mention the "presidential
> library," and a deficit had been projected before the library
> land grab--but Mayor Dailey was questioned about it everywhere he
> went, and his answers didn't impress. The tax was walloped by
> more than two-thirds of voters in a May referendum. Since then,
> the city has frozen hiring and chopped programs to stave off a
> budget emergency. All this time, the land for the library
> has sat undisturbed, covered with tall weeds and empty buildings,
> its intended purpose marked only by a banner that has grown
> progressively more tattered. The mayor originally hoped
> groundbreaking would take place six months ago, but it hasn't
> happened yet. Still, the library is beginning to seem less of an
> albatross. Earlier this month, Clinton finally picked the
> architects: James Stewart Polshek and Richard M. Olcott of the
> Polshek Partnership in New York, along with exhibit designer
> Ralph Appelbaum. One unanswered question is how much time
> Clinton will spend in his home state once his library is
> completed. Perhaps he'll live in an upstairs apartment and huff
> around town in jogging shorts as he did when he was governor. The
> rumor of a Senate run seems dead, but a local satirical revue
> proposes that Clinton capitalize on his legendary press-the-flesh
> skill by working as a Wal-Mart greeter. Speaking of pressing the
> flesh, Clinton will undoubtedly put the library to good use. No
> one expects that Clinton will spend a lot of time in carrels
> poring over his papers, but even so, he has a good track record
> of making the most of the stacks. It was in the Yale Law Library,
> after all, that he first put the moves on Hillary Rodham.
>From Slate.CoM
> > Earlier this month, Clinton finally picked the
> > architects: James Stewart Polshek and Richard M. Olcott of the
> > Polshek Partnership in New York, along with exhibit designer
> > Ralph Appelbaum.
<<Now, tell anyone that they don't have architects in Little
Rock or the whole of Arkansas. And, how prominently will the
Starr Report be displayed should the edifice ever be edified?
New work in progress: "Profiles in {Dis}Courage{ment}" ?
A<>E<>R >>
A<>E<>R
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