Feds Threaten Major Cuts to Historic Preservation Grants

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[Source: Ryan Holeywell, Governing.com]

President Obama and the GOP don’t tend to agree on much these days. But they’ve found common ground in one unusual place: Both want to cut millions of dollars in historic preservation grants.

This week, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), a GOP deputy whip and member of the Republican Study Committee’s steering committee, introduced a bill that would cut $150 billion over five years through nearly 50 types of spending reductions across the board.

Some of the cuts are politically charged, like rescinding voluntary payments to the United Nations and eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Others are common-sense proposals taken from the president’s fiscal commission, such as requiring the sale of excess federal property and reducing federal travel costs.

A little-noticed proposal was a plan to eliminate two programs that fund historic preservation grants: Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America.

According to a House-issued breakdown of Brady’s proposal:

This amendment would eliminate funding for the Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America Program, as called for by the President who said both programs are duplicative and underperforming.

The Preserve America Grant Program was established in 2003 (as) a grant program within (the Department of the Interior) to provide ‘planning funding to support preservation efforts through heritage tourism, education, and historic preservation planning.’

The Save America’s Treasures Program in Department of Interior awards grants to preserve historically significant properties. This account is also heavily earmarked. $4.6 million is appropriated for Preserve in FY 2010 and $25 million is appropriated for Save. The Department of the Interior oversees multiple, overlapping historic preservation programs. Additionally, every federal agency is required to maintain a historic preservation program and must appoint a historic preservation officer and comply with the National Historic Preservation Act. In addition, there are numerous other federal grant programs and tax provisions aimed at historic preservation.

But Patrick J. Lally, director of congressional affairs for The National Trust for Historic Preservation, said Brady is downplaying the grants’ significance. Save America’s Treasures is the only federal grant dedicated exclusively to physical restoration of nationally significant sites, and it represents a significant portion of all federal funding for historic preservation.

The historic preservation fund, which is part of the Department of Interior, is usually funded at about $75 million to $78 million, and Save America’s Treasures usually makes up about $25 million to $30 million of that total. Eliminating it would be a huge blow to federal preservation efforts, Lally tells FedWatch. “It’s not like when lawmakers propose elimination of these funds they go to another account within the historic preservation fund,” Lally says. “They go away.”

Save America’s Treasures has provided funding to restore the Montgomery bus where Rosa Parks made her stand, the workshop where Thomas Edison created his inventions and the cottage to which President Lincoln retreated during hot Washington summers, among other projects. Since its 1998 launch, it has provided nearly $294 million to more than 1,100 preservation projects.

While Save America’s Treasures focuses on physical work, Preserve America grants provide funding for things like marketing, research and digitizing records — ancillary work that helps to promote “heritage tourism” to cultural and natural sites. For example, Honolulu was awarded $150,000 to develop programs to showcase its Chinatown, and Oxford, Miss. received $75,000 to fund exhibits about the life of Supreme Court Justice L.Q.C. Lamar in his historic home. Preserve America has provided more than $17 million in grants to more than 225 projects.

This time, the programs are being targeted by a House Republican. But a year ago, it was President Obama who proposed cutting the programs in his 2010-2011 budget. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the White House blog that they “lack rigorous performance metrics and evaluation efforts so the benefits are unclear.”

That decision was especially unusual, given that the White House has previously been a supporter of the programs. In March 2009, Obama signed legislation that permanently authorized them, and in December of that year, First Lady Michelle Obama touted Save America’s Treasures as a way to “empower communities all over the country to rescue and restore this priceless heritage.”

Lally says he believes Obama’s proposal to cut the programs last year was an oversight. Congress ultimately preserved funding for the programs, largely due to the fact that Save America’s Treasures has a record of creating jobs (16,000 since its inception), Lally says. The White House’s budget will be released next month, and preservations are anxiously waiting to see whether it will against target the two programs, like Brady has already done. And given that deficit reduction has been the theme repeated ad nauseum by the new House Republican leadership, the future of the programs could be in jeopardy.

The fact that the two programs are fighting for their survival is especially ironic, considering the $29.6 allotted to them is a pittance of the overall federal budget. Nancy Schamu, executive director of the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, tells FedWatch she doesn’t know why preservation funding is being targeted, especially since it’s basically “decimal dust” in the grand scheme of things.

“That’s something you’ll have to ask the bill drafters,” she says.

Jerome Grand Hotel To Reopen Following Judge’s Injunction

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[Source: Steve Jansen, Phoenix New Times’ Jackalope Ranch]

jeromegrandhotel2.jpg
Tamara Horton

​A Yavapai County Superior Court judge has allowed the Jerome Grand Hotel to reopen following what hotel co-owner Robert Altherr called an “illegal shutdown.”

As was previously reported, the historic hotel’s certificate of occupancy was revoked by town officials on December 8 due to “unsafe” conditions. The move caused the hotel to halt its operations for more than a month. The decision also prompted hotel co-owner Altherr to tell New Times that “Gestapo tactics” were being used against him.

Though Altherr is jazzed that the hotel’s certificate of occupancy has been reinstated (which occurred during a preliminary injunction hearing on January 14), he and his attorney will still pursue an $8-million-plus lawsuit that they filed with Yavapai County Superior Court on December 14.

“The five percent of people that run this town are wackos,” says Altherr, “but the other ninety-five percent are good people.”

In the meantime, the Jerome Grand Hotel will start getting back to business starting tomorrow and Friday during an open house while the weekend will feature a grand reopening bash with live radio broadcasts and giveaways.

The hotel is on 200 Hill Street in Jerome. For more information, check out its official website.

Anthony Tung to be Keynote Speaker at AZ Historic Preservation Conference 2011

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[Source:  PRLog (Press Release)]

© Janet Vicario

Renowned author and international historian Anthony Tung will be a featured speaker during “Valuing Historic Perspectives,” the Ninth Annual Historic Preservation Conference, to be held June 22-24, 2011 at the University Park Marriott Hotel near the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Author and urbanist Anthony M. Tung has been a New York City Landmarks Preservation Commissioner, an instructor on architectural history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a visiting professor on international urban preservation at MIT. He has lectured in Singapore, Madrid, Amsterdam, Istanbul,San Juan, Edinburgh, Athens, Mexico City, Vienna, Kyoto, and across North America—consulting on heritage conservation policy with officials in Toronto, Halifax, New York, and New Orleans.

His first book, entitled Preserving the World’s Great Cities:  The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis (hardcover: Clarkson Potter, 2001; softcover: Three Rivers Press, 2001) is a detailed socio-cultural portrait of preservation efforts in eighteen cities across the globe—described by Publisher’s Weekly as an “important contribution not only to the literature of urban studies and city planning but to architectural history and sociology,” by the Atlanta Journal Constitution as “a remarkable chronicle of human spirit and architectural heritage,” by Architectural Record On-Line as “an epic, or rather, 18 little epics packed into one important book,” and by The Washington Post, as “a landmark of creative urbanism . . . Tung’s breath of vision and rapid-fire insights recall Lewis Mumford at his best.” (more here)

“Valuing Historic Perspectives” held jointly by Arizona State Parks, the State Historic Preservation Office, Main Street / Department of Commerce, non-profit Arizona Preservation Foundation, the Arizona Historical Society, and the Arizona Archaeological Council will bring together more than 300 people and organizations interested in current topics and program management best practices in preservation, drawn primarily from architectural, archaeological, historical research, consulting, real estate development, construction, general contracting, Tribal, legal, and state and local government organizations from across the Southwest.

Sessions at the 2011 Conference will include:  Folk Baroque: the Art & Architecture of San Xavier del Bac – National Historic Landmark, built 1783-1797; Preserving the History of Arizona and the West in the Levi Strauss & Co. Archives; Introduction to Prehistoric Analyses in Arizona; Doing the Business of Archaeology in Arizona: Integrating AZSITE, the State Historic Preservation Act and the Arizona Antiquities Act into Arizona Archaeology; and The Basics of Historical Period Artifact Identification.

“Valuing Historic Perspectives” will be based out of the University Park Marriott Hotel, just outside the campus of the University of Arizona.  Registration information is available online at www.azpreservation.com. Conference registration begins at $225 per person; member and early registration and professional affiliation discounts are available.  Full-time undergraduate and graduate student rates are available.

Conference underwriters include: Arizona Department of Commerce; the National Park Service; the National Trust for Historic Preservation; Arizona State Parks; the City of Tucson; Desert Archaeology, Inc.; Statistical Research, Inc.; Archaeological Consulting Services; the Tempe Historic Preservation Foundation; the Arizona Historical Society; Local First Arizona; HistoricStreetscapes; Baker Custom Photo; the Arizona Archaeological Council; and the Arizona State Museum.  More information about Arizona Preservation Foundation, its goals and mission, is available at www.azpreservation.org.

Study: Privatize SOME State Parks

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[Source: Ginger Rough, The Arizona Republic]

Non-profit’s report suggests streamlining, reorganization

A new study (.pdf) concludes that Arizona’s state-parks system could operate more efficiently if the private sector took over part of its operations and if a quasi-public agency managed it.

However, the report, commissioned by the non-profit Arizona State Parks Foundation, says it is not feasible to privatize the entire system, in part because some state parks, such as Lake Havasu and Lost Dutchman, are operated via leases with the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management.

“You can’t privatize what you don’t own,” said Cristie Statler, the foundation’s executive director. The group does fundraising for the state-parks system.

Among other things, the study also suggests that the state continue to reduce park operating hours, including keeping some parks open only during certain seasons. It also says it would be more efficient to have regional teams manage several park sites.

Consultants looked at all but two or three of the state’s 30 parks before making their recommendations.

Arizona officials, grappling with an ongoing budget crisis, have been looking for ways to privatize services and improve government efficiency. An 11-member commission appointed by Gov. Jan Brewer issued broad preliminary ideas on how to do that in September, but has missed a year-end deadline to unveil long-term, specific proposals.

Budget cuts had threatened to close more than a dozen parks last year, but officials worked to get financial commitments from counties and community groups to keep several of them open. Currently only three of the state’s 30 parks and recreation areas are closed.

It’s not clear what will come of the recommendations in the report, which was written by PROS Consulting of Indianapolis and cost $35,000. It was vetted by current or former parks directors at six out-of-state agencies that have privatized some of their services, Statler said.

Renee Bahl, executive director of the Arizona Parks Board, said creating a quasi-public authority was an “idea worth exploring,” but the most important thing was ensuring that the parks system is a self-sufficient agency that brings money into the state.

The foundation has approached the Governor’s Office about the findings, and is “interested in working” with Brewer’s Commission on Privatization and Efficiency, Statler said.