Bountiful Museum Tapping Taxpayers for Money

This is a follow up on Bountiful’s historical museum. Bountiful is now asking fro $300,000 from Utah’s taxpayers via the Legislature.

While historical preservation could be argued to be a legitimate function of government, this one has some serious concerns regarding who will be the beneficiaries of such a project. Click the link and look at the lower half of the post. The names should sound familiar to those living in Bountiful. The project appears to be another example of a political pet project using other’s money (aka pork).

Additionally, just as the recreation center, this is being pitched as a “South Davis” project but, by all appearances, is run, housed, and controlled by Bountiful. If you go to the story on the Standard Examiner’s page, even the graphic (upper right) was provided by Bountiful. This also begs the question: Who are the “South Davis County officials” involved besides Bountiful? Are North Salt Lake, Woods Cross, etc mayors/councils involved or is this entirely being headed by Bountiful?

Finally, the big question: How much funding will be required to maintain the museum if it is built? Who will pay it?

Building it will, apparently, cost $1.5 milliion. However, once it’s built it won’t be maintained for free. Lights, cleaning, displays, workers, won’t be free. Will taxpayers be forced to pay for that as well? If so that doesn’t bode well for taxpayers. I’ve been told (this is UNconfirmed) that the new recreation complex is $200,000 more in the hole for maintenance/operation than anticipated (I think they predicted a loss of about $500,000/year).