Sell it to the private sector and let them run with it.  Public money  will 
just be wasted.
 
J South
 
 
In a message dated 10/23/2008 3:30:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Basil  Forest wrote:
> I am tired of public funds being spent on  projects
> that are really only of interest to some small  segment
> of American  society.  I think we need  another
> memorial to slavery like we need a  memorial to
>  prohibition...another bad American idea that we
> should forget.  Suggesting that Fortress Monroe
> is as historically significant as  Jefferson's
> Monticello is just a further insult to the man
>  along the lines of  unproven and unproveable
> allegations of  miscegenation with a slave girl.

Mr. Forest, I'll assume that you and I  are not likely to agree on the Fort
Monroe historical and cultural issues,  so I won't harangue you on those.
But I'll bet that you'll give me at least  a brief hearing on the question
of public money at post-Army Fort Monroe.  On that, you and I might in fact
agree.

No matter what anybody wants  or says, a lot of federal money is going to
be spent to clean Fort Monroe  after the Army leaves. How can we minimize
that expenditure and maximize  Fort Monroe's contributions to Tidewater's
and Virginia's  economy?

The post comprises nearly 600 acres, only about a tenth of  which is the
famous moated fortress. Because Fort Monroe served for well  over a century
as a coastal artillery post, it has lots of environmental  problems.
Federal law requires cleaning the place up.

According to  the planning authorities, any of three basic cleanup programs
can be  followed.

The most expensive cleanup plan -- up to many hundreds of  millions of
dollars -- is required for massive development. No one even  knows for
sure, but they know the order of magnitude.

The least  expensive -- I'm guessing a few tens of percent of the higher
amount -- is  required for reusing the existing buildings and for
continuing mainly to  use bayfront green space as green space.

(Kids live and play all over  the post right now. Nothing explodes. Nothing
harms them. The problems are  underground, where footings and roadbeds and
utilities would go if there  were massive development.)

The most expensive plan amounts to a federal  subsidy for Hampton and its
developers, profiting nobody else very much in  any sense. If you want to
see for yourself a picture of what Hampton wants  to do to Old Point
Comfort, please just see the home page at  CFMNP.org.

But we could instead let Fort Monroe evolve slowly into a  grand public
place for everybody -- a place that respects Tidewater's  enormous need for
more public waterfront green space.

And if we did  that, we'd need some of that federal money, but nowhere near
what it'd cost  to clean up the place so that Hampton could use it
selfishly, merely as a  cash windfall.

Also if we did that, we'd give Hampton Roads a signature  place, a place
that could help to brand the region positively, helping the  economic
development folks attract the kinds of enterprises we need  here.

And that'd be without putting Hampton's taxpayers at risk, as  they are
under the present plan.

Yes, a grand public place at Fort  Monroe would cost some federal money. My
own view is that the most sensible  way to do it is to create a hybrid
national park like San Francisco's  Presidio -- innovatively structured,
and self-sustaining by using Fort  Monroe's assets to generate revenue.

That's all being looked into, in  fact.

A grand public place of some sort at Fort Monroe would cost a lot  less
federal money than would donating this 600-acre National Historic  Landmark
-- so designated a half-century ago -- to one city for  narrowly
envisioned, short-term, parochial purposes.

And it would  profit us a lot more, even if Mr. Forest's view of history  is
right.

Thanks.

Steve Corneliussen
P.S.: Mr. Forest, if  by chance you think I'm a Hemings-TJ paternity
believer, I ask you to  glance for maybe 60 seconds at  www.TJscience.org.

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