Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Dali museum attracts protesters from D.C.

A national taxpayer group arrives to complain about federal earmarks to relocate the Salvador Dali museum closer to downtown.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published June 13, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG — A national taxpayer group protesting lucrative last-minute federal earmarks said Monday the Salvador Dali Museum is one of the process’ most egregious beneficiaries.

The St. Petersburg museum has won $1.15-million in federal grants since 2004, money that came without any congressional debate or oversight, said the nonprofit Americans for Prosperity.

The Washington, D.C., group, founded in 2003, is traveling to 23 cities on what it calls the “Ending Earmarks Express” tour, hoping to draw attention to 15,000 anonymous inserts into the federal budget that rarely have national significance.

In the Dali’s case, part of the money was to be used to make renovations to the current museum. Then additional money was awarded for a new building, said Tim Phillips, the group’s president.

“Here you say you’re fixing it one year, then you’re going to build a new building the next,” said Phillips, speaking at an afternoon news conference in St. Petersburg. “It sure seems like there was a lack of a plan, or a waste of money.”

Museum officials defended the grants Monday, saying the money will be used to build student classrooms in a new $30-million waterfront museum.

“There are many grievous examples of government extravagance. This is not one of them,” said Jane Roberts, a volunteer docent at the museum for almost 25 years.

The museum is more than a local or even state tourist draw, said the museum’s executive director, Hank Hine. Half of the museum’s 220,000 annual visitors now come from outside Florida.

“We have visitors from every state in the nation, in the tens of thousands,” Hine said. “Although the museum is certainly an asset to this community, it’s really an educational and cultural resource for all Americans.”

Work on the new museum is expected to begin next year, museum officials said. Along with $1.15-million in federal money for the project, the state is contributing $8-million. The sale of the old museum and private donors are expected to account for the rest.

“This is not an attack on the museum,” said Phillips, who was joined at the news conference by Eddie Adams Jr., a Republican running for Congress in Florida’s 11th District. “The system that lets this happen is what needs changing.”

The federal government last year inserted $42-billion in earmarks into the budget, Phillips said. Americans for Prosperity — which said it is running advertisements against earmarks in Michigan, West Virginia and Rhode Island — said the budget requests should become part of the normal monthslong process.

“It’s deceptive in the way it’s done,” said Adams, the lone Republican running for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa.

The Dali museum is the only federal earmark on the list from Florida. Others include Newark, N.J., which won a $300,000 Homeland Security Department grant to purchase air-conditioned garbage trucks, and the New York Center for Grape Genetics, which has won a total of $9.6-million in grants since 2004.

Aaron Sharockman can be reached at asharockman@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2273.

[Last modified June 13, 2006, 00:50:51]