Marshals museum-tax pitch questioned

Skeptics voice doubt of Fort Smith attraction’s drawing power, relevance

FORT SMITH -- U.S. Marshals Museum officials faced some difficult questions Wednesday during the third and last community meeting on a proposed 1 percent sales tax to complete the U.S. Marshals Service's national museum.

About 40 people attended the hourlong meeting at Elm Grove Community Center, where officials answered questions to try to persuade Fort Smith voters to approve the nine-month sales tax that would generate $15.5 million to $16 million to allow the museum to develop its exhibit experience.

Early voting for the special election begins Tuesday, with the election March 12.

Mark McCourt said he's read a book that said frontier museums were dying, adding he didn't see much interest in the marshals museum within the city. He expressed skepticism the museum could draw 125,000 visitors a year.

Museum President and CEO Patrick Weeks said the marshals museum was not a frontier museum, many of which were small. He compared the marshals museum to larger museums, such as the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill.

The annual visitor projection was the result of a feasibility study conducted last year, one of three completed since 2009, Weeks said. Visitors won't just arrive, he said. The museum will have a marketing director who will aggressively advertise the museum around the country, and the museum will have a business model that includes revenue and fundraising.

Pauline Novak, a black woman, told the officials she did not believe the museum had anything to offer "her people."

Museum Foundation President Jim Dunn said one of the stories the museum will tell is about the deputy marshals in New Orleans in 1960 who braved mobs of angry white people to deliver the first black children -- Leona Tate, Tessie Provost and Gail Etienne -- to integrate schools there.

Construction on the 50,000-square-foot building started in July on the banks of the Arkansas River. Officials have said it will cost $19.1 million to build the structure. The museum's foundation has raised more than $35.4 million over nearly 10 years in contributions and in-kind donations.

Dunn said donations to pay for the exhibit experience dried up when a large potential donation fell through late last summer, which prompted officials to ask Fort Smith city directors for the tax. City directors passed two ordinances, one levying the tax and one calling for the March 12 special election.

If the tax doesn't pass, Weeks said fundraising will continue indefinitely to complete the museum. Meanwhile, costs to maintain the staff will continue to rise, he said.

If the tax passes, any revenue from collections that is not needed for the museum will go toward creating an endowment, Dunn said.

If the tax passes, the ordinances said, a public facilities board consisting of local residents would be appointed by Mayor George McGill and would purchase and own the museum's building and grounds. The public facilities board's ownership of the property would allow for the use of public tax money for the museum, a private entity.

The public facilities board would lease the building to the marshals museum, which would operate the museum.

The museum, with its 1,000-item collection, will consist of three permanent exhibit galleries, a temporary exhibit gallery, the Samuel M. Sicard Hall of Honor to recognize those killed in the line of duty and a National Education Center.

State Desk on 02/28/2019

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