The Litchfield (Ill.) City Council failed Tuesday to approve an appropriation of $20,000 in motel-tax funds for the new Litchfield Museum & Route 66 Welcome Center, reported the Springfield State Journal-Register.
The council voted 4-4, and the mayor abstained from casting a tiebreaking vote, sinking the proposal. The museum would use the money for display cases and furnishings.
Mayor Tom Jones had somewhat incongruous things to say about the vote:
Jones said he abstained from voting because he has “no opinion one way or the other.”
“I’m not opposed to the museum at all,” he said, but organizers shouldn’t have started building before they lined up money to furnish the museum.
The museum originally requested $100,000, but reduced it to $20,000. Museum officials also presented the councilors a business plan.
Lonnie Bathurst, a local businessman who chairs the museum’s steering committee and helped develop the business plan, said the aldermen who voted against using money earmarked for tourism promotion to help the museum aren’t seeing the bigger picture.
Travelers along Route 66 spend millions of dollars each year in communities from Chicago to Southern California, Bathurst said.
“We happen to be lucky enough to be on there. We’re just not capitalizing on it in the biggest way possible,” he said. “A museum of that size and cost and magnitude, in terms of its quality, would compare to maybe only half a dozen others along the whole length of the highway.”
While it’s possible for the museum to get off the ground without city support, Bathurst said, “it would be much easier to have the city behind it going forward.”
Bathurst indicated that museum officials may bring up another request for funding in the future, including 0.5 percent of the city’s 3 percent motel tax going to the museum.
The Journal-News reported that one councilor was concerned whether the city would be liable for the museum’s debts if revenues didn’t cover the loan. Another councilor questioned the museum getting motel-tax funds when other nonprofit ventures hadn’t requested them.
The museum is raising money in other ways, including selling commemorative bricks for its memorial garden. The museum, located across the street from the Ariston Cafe, is nearly finished with its construction.