The latest town hall meeting on the county sales tax referendum took place tonight at Dunlap Valley Middle School. The presenters were Brad McMillan for the museum, Erik Bush for the county, and Karrie Alms for Citizens for Responsible Spending. I was pleased to see that tonight’s meeting was a balanced presentation, pro and con. Kudos to the county for now allowing both sides a seat at the table.

While most of the evening was filled with no new information, there was one significant development. As you may know, the museum has set separate goals for private and public funding. The sales tax is supposed to plug the gap in public funding, but there is still an $11 million shortfall on the private funding side. At just about every meeting, the question is raised as to how the museum group plans to close that $11 million private funding gap. And the answer has always been that they’ve gotten a commitment from the CEO Roundtable to raise $8 million of it, and that they’re confident that people will come out of the wings to support the project once they know the public funding is in place. Sounds far-fetched to me for various reasons, but I don’t want to digress on that right now.

What we learned tonight is that they are also trying to plug that gap with (perhaps not surprisingly) more public money from state and federal sources. Mr. McMillan said the group is working with state senators Risinger and Koehler, as well as Congressman Schock to get grants, stimulus money, and any other funds the government might have lying around that could go toward the museum.

This indicates a bit of a shift in strategy on the museum’s part. It would appear that they are now changing their public/private funding goals. Why might they be doing this? Could it be because they don’t really believe they can make up that $11 million shortfall with private donations after all?

(P.S. On a side note, do you remember a comment on another post from “kcdad” where he said today’s schools are set up to teach children consumerism? Well, after seeing the brand new, state-of-the-art Dunlap Valley Middle School tonight, I’m inclined to agree with him. The building looks like a shopping mall inside and out, not an educational institution. Architecture and environment teach you something about what a community values; clearly the value here is consumerism.)