Tax Bills Imperil Slavery Museum

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — It’s been 10 years since L. Douglas Wilder, the nation’s first elected black governor, unveiled a plan to build the United States National Slavery Museum on 38 acres here. It was to be the only institution of its kind, housed in a soaring glass-and-travertine building and illuminated at night so that cars passing on I-95 could see the full-scale replica of a slave ship in its atrium.

Today the land remains vacant and is drowning in tax bills.

The museum owes more than $215,000 in property taxes and fees, dating back to 2008. This month the city announced it is putting the land on the auction block.

“It just seems that nothing has been happening, and nobody’s answering any of the mail we send to them, so we’re just doing the same thing to them that we’d do to anybody else,” said G. M. Haney, the city’s treasurer.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/arts/design/wilders-plan-for-slavery-museum-may-have-ended.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[LiberalFighter]

1. They weren't able to get the place tax-exempt?

[Igel]

2. Something's wrong there.

No idea what, and, as expected, the NYT doesn't bother to answer the obvious yet important questions.

It's what I think of as "feel bad reporting." Light on facts and thinking, utterly lacking in answers or even a clear presentation of the problem, yet heavy on outrage and wistfulness.

A feeling article for an unthinking populace. So utterly beNYTed.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Reporters need to have reasonable life experiences

so they have some idea of what the hell is going on.

[No Elephants]

5. Exactly my thought. Local real estate tax laws vary, but most would

give a break to a museum whose purpose is to educate the public.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. True, and maybe they would, IF there was a museum

after 10 years of no building, and not enough money to break ground, it appears that the museum isn't going to happen.

So why does the museum organization need the 38 acres? Or a tax break?

[Posteritatis]

7. Unless the people writing the local laws had a problem with the museum in question

I can definitely see some people in denial about the history of slavery (or hell, these days, approving of it) not wanting such a museum to operate easily.

[kirby]

4. Contrast to this article yesterday...

"Alabama Still Collecting Tax For Confederate Vets"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1528921&mesg_id=1528921

[dbackjon]

8. I thought of that as well

No money for remembering the slaves, plenty for remembering the assholes that enslaved them