Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Marshal-ing resources
Voters asked to back museum’s development
Advocates who have worked for years to open in Fort Smith a national museum dedicated to U.S. marshals got one of their biggest Christmas gifts a few days early when city leaders backed a March election to pro- vide critical funding.
It’s been a long ride.
As we prepare to enter 2019, it’s hard to believe Fort Smith is coming up on the 12th anniversary of the day — Jan. 4 — it was selected to be the new home for the U.S. Marshal’s Museum. That decision came after those pushing Fort Smith spent late 2006 lobbying hard for the opportunity to “bring it home” to a city they deemed a natural fit. The push included a barbecue for the selection committee in which more than 900 showed up in support of the effort.
Community support and historical context, said site selection committee chairman Mike Pearson said at the time, were two critical criteria for where the museum would go. “You have amply demonstrated both,” Pearson told the crowd.
In those early days, projects suggested a cost of $15 million to $22 million and talk of groundbreaking in 2008. The plan was for a private fundraising campaign to deliver the money to make the museum a reality.
The museum’s cheerleaders have delivered a lot of gifts from generous philanthropists. Sometimes, though, it takes a U.S. marshal a little longer than planned to nab the subject of his pursuit, and the story of Fort Smith’s all-out pursuit of the museum follows a similar path. The groundbreaking didn’t happen until Sept. 24, 2014. Visions for the museum and its operation continued to evolve until the fund-raising goal was approaching $59 million. By mid-2017, fund-raising had reached around $35 million, but organizers still needed to trim plans to make the project feasible. Construction got under way in 2018, but money is still a barrier. Organizers say they’re doubtful they can bring in the necessary money through philanthropic efforts.
So what’s the solution? City leaders will essentially put the support within the community to the test. The museum’s supporters asked the City Council to call a special election for a nine-month, 1 percent sales tax collection that’s expected to raise more than $15 million. The election will be March 12. From the earliest days of Fort Smith’s potential as home for the museum, the level of support within the community has been strong. It’s easy to cheer-lead the spending of other people’s money. Now, Fort Smith voters will be given an opportunity to direct public funding toward the museum in a relatively short-term way that will nonetheless have a big impact.
From an economic, cultural and educational standpoint, Fort Smith is indeed a natural fit for this incredible museum. It makes perfect sense for it to be in the town that sat at the edge of the frontier and from which so much of the effort that tamed the West originated.
The strongest complaint so far regarding the election is its timing. Some people have a fundamental dispute with the idea of special elections. We get that. But that disagreement is not a strong argument for the city to shoot itself in the foot. Others say the citizens are overtaxed anyway. If that’s one’s view, so be it. But if one believes a strategic, short-term tax paid by locals and visitors is a wise way to ensure construction of a unique attraction that celebrates the town’s heritage and draws tourists, then this tax makes sense.
Communities that invest in themselves see great things happen. What an opportunity for Fort Smith to become home to a museum of national stature, telling a fascinating story of the nation’s oldest law enforcement agency.