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October 28, 2009 - City Beat Endorses Issue 6
With four countywide tax levies on the November ballot, the most since 1994, you would expect the public to balk. But with two in particular — levies in support of the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County — that doesn’t seem to be the case, with widespread support for both.
Issue 6, the Museum Center levy, is a renewal of the 2004 levy, though with a slight reduction. The new levy, a 0.18 mill, five-year tax, would raise an expected $3.4 million a year, which center officials say is “absolutely necessary” just for upkeep of the aging building.
Housed in the 76-year-old Union Terminal, the Museum Center is suffering from water damage, cracking concrete and crumbling plaster in need of repairs, says center President and CEO Douglass McDonald. The center spends about $2.5 million annually in basic upkeep.
For taxpayers, the levy renewal means an owner of a $100,000 home would pay about $4.43 a year for the tax, a 50-cent reduction from a previous levy. More importantly, Mc- Donald adds, it’s about half of what taxpayers had been paying to support the center.
A previous bond issue, passed in 1986 to aid the center in moving into Union Terminal in 1990, also expires this year. That had cost an owner of a $100,000 home to also pay an additional $4.10 per year, which may explain why the latest request has been met without organized opposition.
“(The renewed levy) is less than the cost of a postage stamp a month. It’s less than 10 postage stamps per year,” McDonald says, putting forth several reasons the National Landmark Registry site needs community support. Earlier this week, the center was named a 2009 winner of the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor.
Douglass McDonald, the Museum Center’s CEO, shows off the building’s murals in its famed rotunda.
It’s been ranked as the 17th-most attended museum in the country — above even Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — and Union Terminal itself has been ranked as the 45th most important architectural structure in America by the American Institute of Architects.
“It’s an expensive building to maintain, but as challenging as it is to take care of, it’s also been a remarkably successful use for the building,” he says. “That’s why, I think, that people who don’t normally agree on issues agree on the necessity of sup porting the center and taking care of this building.”
Without the levy, its programs and exhibits could suffer, McDonald adds.