Walter Waddell's message concluded:

> From what I have learned of the Founding Fathers,
> I would suggest, ever so mildly, that they had no
> inclination that their work would lead to the public
> funding of either the "un-useful" arts or the
> preservation of "un-needed" buildings.

I'm probably not subtle enough to follow all the implications in your
note, Mr. Waddell. I'm not even completely sure that you're engaging the
Fort Monroe question. But your note calls to mind the imperative for Fort
Monroe National Park to be structured innovatively so as to be
self-sustaining, using not tax money but revenue generated from its many
assets -- for instance, an expanded marina, and the fine old residences,
and the many traditional old college-campus-like buildings.

San Francisco's Presidio is a comparable, though far less historically
important, former Army post situated comparably beside another of the
world's most important harbors. There a federal trust exercises general
oversight responsibility in partnership with the National Park Service.
It's true that the Presidio was granted federal transition money, and it's
true that I wouldn't know what James Madison, whom you mentioned, would
think about that. But the Presidio is meeting its financial goals for
self-sustenance, and the result is a net plus for economic enrichment --
not to speak of cultural and historical and residential and environmental
and recreational enrichment.

At Fort Monroe, thanks to the environmental cleanup situation that I
explained earlier, the corresponding federal transition money would be
_less_ than that required simply to confiscate Fort Monroe from its actual
owners -- us -- and donate it to Hampton so that it could be blanketed
with the multistory condos pictured on the home page at CFMNP.org.

And again, federal law requires that some amount of federal money be
spent. We can minimize that amount by saying no to Hampton's de facto
request that federal taxpayers subsidize that city's misguided, unwise --
and ultimately not even legitimate -- development aspirations.

Steve Corneliussen

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html