Excitement is building for the future National Cold War Museum, which will be housed at the decommissioned Blytheville Air Force Base alert facility on the Arkansas Aeroplex.
A study predicts some 50,000 visitors will walk through the museum each year, and if that is indeed the case, it will be well worth the $20 million organizers are trying to raise from private and corporate donors.
Now, there has been some pushback from those who say Blytheville needs more activities for youth — particularly a community center — more so than a museum aimed out reeling in visitors.
And I agree that Blytheville needs a community center, which is long overdue.
However, the National Cold War Museum will be built on private donations, not using city of Blytheville parks and recreation tax dollars, for example. Just the opposite, the museum will create tax revenue for projects like a community center if city leaders so choose that as a worthwhile investment of parks and rec monies.
Not to get too far into the weeds, but I believe before voters made the 1/4-cent parks and recreation tax permanent in 2007, the general fund was supplying $800,000-900,000 a year to the parks system.
If memory serves, the pitch to make the tax permanent was that it would supplement what the city was already spending on parks and recreation, allowing for new parks projects.
Voters went to the polls thinking the $700,000 or so collected each year from the tax would be used to enhance parks and recreation in Blytheville, not as the only source of income other than golf course receipts and a little bit of money from the Walker Park pool.
Remember, at one time, there was $1.1 million in CDs that could only be used for parks and recreation, as it was excess funds from a parks and recreation bond. And the city could have found ways to avoid losing $300,000 a year at the golf course all those years; Thunder Bayou probably lost, conservatively, $4.5 million or more the first 15 years it was open.
According to city of Blytheville CFO John Callens, the city does not have golf course financials prior to the accounting system change in 2011.
However, records show in 2011, the golf course lost $320,886; in 2012, $277,954; in 2013, $280,962; in 2014, $320,997, in 2015, $315,508; in 2016, $291,610; in 2017, $287,741; and in 2018, $364,760 (because of equipment replacement).
The point is the city has had a revenue stream for a community center if that had been a priority.
In my opinion, the lack of a community center shouldn’t muddy the conversation on the National Cold War Museum.
Disappointment over not having a community center should be aimed at city leaders, not the Cold War museum effort.
The museum has an opportunity to bring in tourism dollars and educate a generation on what it was like to live here at the time of the Cold War, especially for the airmen on high alert.
Hopefully, the entire community will get behind the effort and see what it can do for Blytheville.