PRESENTATION OF ROBERT HENLEY LAMB
TO THE
JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE TO EXAMINE THE COST AND FEASIBILITY
OF RELOCATING THE MUSEUM AND WHITE HOUSE OF THE CONFEDERACY –
HJ RES. No. 747
Monday, November 21, 2005, 2:00 P.M. House Room D, General Assembly Building
I am Robert Henley Lamb, an attorney, native resident of Richmond, and former Trustee of The Museum of the Confederacy. I previously testified before this panel on August 29, 2005. I ask that all of my written testimony and attachments thereto be made part of the public record.
I have attached a set of 14 recommendations for your consideration. I will focus on three of them.
*The Richmond Downtown Plan should be refined ASAP to require reconfiguring or demolishing the decrepit Health, Safety and Welfare Building, so as to reopen the East Clay Street corridor between 9th and 10th Streets to vehicular traffic for the vital enhancement of access and museum synergy involving the MOC/Valentine/ Marshall House.
*VCU should dedicate its parking deck's upper level for the exclusive use of visitors to the MOC, as well as modify its construction design to provide for separate vehicular access/egress and a separate walkway
therefrom for such visitors (one not involving entering the hospital).
*The MOC should place a perpetual conservation easement on its property now and sell the credits earned on the open market, thereby generating substantial cash needed for current expenses and capital campaign kickoff.
Those who improvidently concluded that moving both the Museum and White House of the Confederacy was the only viable option based their reasoning on the stated notion that "easier access to both the Museum and the White House should result in a significant increase in visitation and revenue from entry fees, making us financially self-sufficient again." In support of their conclusion, they made observations regarding the current compromised degree of access and the recent pattern of sharply declining visitorship. They have employed a peculiar form of deductive logical fallacy known as petitio principii (begging the question). That is, their statements can be true without the conclusion drawn necessarily being so. In fact, their statement of current access, inferentially linked to insufficient visitorship, proves nothing because it incorrectly and implicitly assumes, based upon stale information, that access cannot be improved without moving, much less to the extent necessary for MOC viability. The official MOC presentation offered in support of its conclusion is, as Churchill once said, one "compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought. "
In contradistinction, there was credible testimony on behalf of the City of Richmond that, under its Downtown Plan adopted on November 8, 2004, historic East Clay Street corridor would be reconnected to some degree and Court End reinvigorated - thereby addressing area attractiveness plus some of the access and parking problems in imaginative ways advocates of the move did not envision. And yet, reluctant to admit error and changed circumstances, and apparently not participating vigorously in any concerted effort to tweak the Downtown Plan or VCU design to improve them further, supporters of the move march heedlessly on an anti-preservationist course to eviscerate the MOC - saving it by destroying it - and convert its White House into a mere curiosity, akin to the former London Bridge, now incongruously located in the Arizona desert.
Recommendations of Robert Henley Lamb
1. That the Richmond Downtown Plan should be refined ASAP to require reconfiguring or demolishing the decrepit Health, Safety and Welfare Building, so as to reopen the East Clay Street corridor between 9th and 10th Streets to vehicular traffic for the vital enhancement of access and museum synergy involving the MOC/Valentine/Marshall House.
2. That the rest of matters laid out in the Richmond Downtown Plan for reinvigoration of the Court End of Richmond be carried out by the City of Richmond ASAP, including adequate parking and signage in the immediate area.
3. That the Department of Historic Resources be given the power by the General Assembly to require changes in projects that adversely impact buildings and sites that have, or are deserving of, Virginia Historic Landmark status.
4. That VCU should dedicate its parking deck's upper level for the exclusive use of visitors to the MOC, as well as modify its construction design to provide for separate vehicular access/egress and a separate walkway therefrom for such visitors (one not involving entering the
hospital), all of which should be conditions to run with the VCU parking deck land for as long as the MOC remains at its current location.
5. That VCU continue to provide steam heat under the conditions previously agreed to by the MOCNCU not only for the term agreed to for such, but also past such term ifVCU and the MOC remained on their respective sites.
6. That the Commonwealth of Virginia and City of Richmond specifically agree to place enhanced directional and promotional signage relating to the MOC along appropriate roadways and highways to attract and guide visitors to the MOC.
7. Regarding the Tax Commissioner's tax credit ruling of July 26,2005 on 501(c)(3) organizations and conservation easements: if the General Assembly modifies the Virginia Land Conservation Incentives Act of 1999 to make any changes thereto adversely affecting donations/transfers for such organizations, such changes should be effective no earlier than July 1, 2006, so that tax credits therefrom, involving only a partial compensation for a perpetual burden on the land, could be sold at least within that window of opportunity by the MOC if a timely conservation easement donation had been made.
8. That the MOC place a conservation easement on its property with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and sell the credits therefrom promptly to generate money to sustain short-term operations during the early stages of a capital campaign.
9. That the Commonwealth of Virginia through its new visitor center at the State Capitol and through its tourism promotions, more aggressively market Confederate sites in Richmond, including the MOC .
10. That the City of Richmond aggressively promote visitation of its Confederate sites, including the MOC.
11. That VCU provide significant monies to the MOC not only for mitigation of its current construction activities, but also for its past negative impact on the MOC, through 2015 (the last year of the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States).
12. That VCU, in its future construction activities, commit to take no further action injurious to the MOC.
13. That the MOC use the positive message of such recommendations to galvanize a capital campaign immediately.
14. That the Museum and White House of the Confederacy remain at their present historic locations.
