Over past legislative sessions, lawmakers have given no love to the proposal to build a new home for the Montana Historical Society no love.
This time, supporters are taking a different tack. Instead of tucking funding into an omnibus bonding bill, supporters have their own bill and their own funding stream.
Bruce Whittenberg, the director of the Montana Historical Society, told the Senate Business and Labor Committee this project was authorized by the 2005 Legislature, but when it came to providing the funding, he said that, “it’s been rejected for 5 subsequent sessions.”
That’s why House Minority Leader Jenny Eck, D-Helena, agreed to remove the Montana Heritage Center project from the rejected governor’s infrastructure proposal and the Republican’s bonding bills that are still in play.
Located in Helena, the Montana Historical Society has been looking to cash-in on the promise of a much needed new building because it’s running out of space – space to display and store its collection. Regardless, some lawmakers don’t want the state to incur debt and others don’t support this particular project in a bonding bill- in the past or today.
Eck said that it just became apparent that this was going to be too heavy of a lift, so instead, she placed this project in her House Bill 660. It’s one of two vehicles working their way through the legislative process. Basically, the bills are the same, raise the accommodations – or bed tax – to help pay for the expansion.
The project has also changed. Instead of a brand new 200,000 gross square foot facility to be built somewhere in Helena, this time the plan is to build a much smaller building next to the existing facility which would also be renovated. The new design will also allow the building to meet museum standard temperature, ventilation, lighting, and humidity controls. The current environmental and crowding conditions at the museum puts the collections at risk.
Whittenberg says this “may not be the best solution for getting this project moving forward but it is a solution we are willing to embrace.” He and other supporters say these changes will protect Montana’s priceless collection, boost tourism, provide grants to other museums and create construction jobs.
The Montana Historical Society performs a preservation and education function for Montana history.
According to the Montana Historical Society, they “preserve for future generations representative selection of all historic resources (art, records, books, photographs, oral histories, artifacts, journals, sites, buildings) important to an understanding of Montana history.”
They also “present and provide educational and public programs, reference services, exhibits, and publications that interpret Montana's past to a broad public,” and “provide technical assistance to all organizations that preserve and interpret additional historic resources that help Montanans and her visitors understand the region's past.”
No one testified against House Bill 660. The Senate committee did not immediately act on the bill after the hearing.
On Friday, the House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to hear the other bill, Senate Bill 376.
