And that’s a good thing, as the money - part of the funding for the $5.3 million update of the art museum - had already been spent.
On Saturday, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Mayor John Engen were on hand to present a federal check for $394,115 to museum director Laura Millin.
When the money got stuck, Baucus, the city of Missoula and Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s office got busy. Baucus said it was a frustrating process to break the money loose, but ultimately perseverance paid.
“When you know you’re right, you just keep at it,” said Baucus, who was also in town for a fundraiser related to his 66th birthday.
Engen described the process as a collective banging of politicians’ heads against the bureaucratic wall “until it crumbled.”
Both Millin and Engen noted that at one point back in the 1970s a proposal was afoot that would have scraped the Carnegie Library in favor of a parking lot. It’s sad, Engen noted, that we live in a time when it’s easier to turn an historic building into a parking lot than it is to renovate it.
The museum project got underway several years ago, and the “Save Our Treasures” money was approved in 2005 and appropriated in 2006. Then it ran afoul of the Park Service.
“Turns out, historic preservation is a tricky business,” Millin said to a crowd gathered at the museum Saturday afternoon.
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or by e-mail at mmoore@missoulian.com.
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