“I guess the state forgot about all the money they owe the schools in southern Illinois. Everyone’s education is going down the toilet, but at least we’ll have a museum to help us remember the good times,” Brandon Ross wrote on the Post’s Facebook wall.
“I’m sorry, but if the state has money to send for a museum why can’t it send the money they owe our schools,” Roxanne Place put on the same site.
“I believe our children’s education should come first. Send down the money the state owes for the schools before you send money for a museum,” Beth Kellerman Lipe added.
Each point is logical but we are talking about government here and logic is more often than not cast to the wind. In this case the state isn’t the bad guy. That’s rare to say, but true. The check it delivered Monday is a federal money transfer through the Community Development Assistant Program. The state might deem who gets the dough but it must be used for projects that are suppose to enhance local economies. The state does not have the discretion to divert that money to schools.
CDAP has been around a long time. When I worked for the Ill. Depart. of Commerce and Community Affairs – the same agency that gave Pinckneyville the money but under a different name – in the 1980s the Jim Thompson administration was throwing CDAP grants at communities like candy at a parade. Illinois’ unemployment rate was at levels that were even higher than today’s and Thompson was in an election campaign for his political survival. CDAP was curry-favor cash and DCCA was churning out grants daily to places Thompson needed a boost.
While unemployment levels reflect those of the early 1980s, what is difference this time is the state’s monstrous $12 billion deficit. It’s that hole, and the real scare that it will only go deeper, that has the state unable to cover its basic debts.
So when a state official comes to town with a bag full of money and gives to the city to create venues to celebrate the past, it’s easy to understand public concern.
But in this instance we have to look beyond the school issue and think in terms that this grant is good for Pinckneyville. I’ll reserve judgment on whether these museums will be able to draw enough people to enable them be financially independent, but give credit those who are looking out for Pinckneyville’s future. In a town that seems to resist change this is a radical concept.
If and when Illinois pulls out of this economic morass Pinckneyville will be better poised to prosper. It will have two new attributes that outsider will (hopefully) want to visit. That may even stop in at Luke’s Shade Tree or Dixie’s for lunch or fill up their tanks. Heck, entrepreneurs might open businesses catering to the hoops or plow enthusiasts. There is irony in this: the creation of two new museums dedicated to the past could mean a brighter future for Pinckneyville.
As Mayor Joe Holder said at Monday’s press conference, “I like talking about the future because that is where we are going to live.”
As musician John Prine wrote, “We are living in the future. I will tell you how I know. I read it in the paper 15 years ago.”
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