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'Hallelujah' by Ken Smith was unveiled during the opening |
BY PAMELA GOULD
Eight months ago, then-Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder visited Fredericksburg to plead with City Council to give tax-exempt status to the slavery museum he announced for Celebrate Virginia seven years earlier.
He acknowledged that his duties as mayor of Richmond had hindered the project's progress. Construction hasn't begun and building permits have never been sought.
"One of the reasons we haven't gone further is speaking to you now--me," Wilder told the council on June 10.
But the former governor and grandson of slaves stressed that financing the U.S. National Slavery Museum had been a major challenge and that the burden of paying taxes on the museum's 38-acre property was a weight the city could lift if it wanted the project.
"Either you want the museum here or you don't," Wilder told the Fredericksburg council. "Clearly, paying the kind of monies that we'd have to pay wouldn't help us in that direction."
But council was not swayed.
Two weeks later, in a 6-1 vote with Councilman Hashmel Turner dissenting, the council denied Wilder's request.
The next tax bill, due in November, went unpaid.
As of this week, with pen-alty and interest added, the museum owed $24,093.02, according to the city treasurer's office.
Now, two months after Wilder's mayoral term ended, no Fredericksburg official has seen or heard from him.
Councilman Turner's attempts to reach him for information have been unsuccessful.
Former Fredericksburg Mayor Lawrence Davies is uncertain whether he remains on the museum board.
And every indication suggests that the museum's small staff--including Executive Director Vonita Foster--is gone.
EMPTY OFFICES
The last certain sighting of Foster at the museum offices in the Uptown section of Central Park was in November.
People who work near the museum's leased space on the second floor of 1320 Central Park Boulevard--doors labeled 244, 250 and 251--say they've seen no one in December, January or this month.
The museum never had much staff beyond Foster and one assistant.
The Free Lance-Star has found no one during repeated visits to the office. The paper has left voice-mail messages for Foster at the museum offices and on her home number, and has sent e-mails to her museum account and a personal account but has never received any response.
This week, calls to museum offices were met by a recording that said: "The number you have reached is arranged for outgoing calls only."
Word circulating through the city is that Foster resigned from her $85,000 position.
Wilder, who now has an office at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, has not responded to messages left with his assistant, Ruth Jones.
Jones said she couldn't help the newspaper get in touch with Foster. "I really don't have any forwarding information for her," Jones said.
Asked whether Wilder planned to fill Foster's position, Jones said the newspaper "would need to get that information from the governor."
LAND IN JEOPARDY?
City Treasurer G.M. Haney said his office is "aggressive" about collecting taxes and will use whatever tools he needs to collect the funds.
That includes taking money from bank accounts and, ultimately, seizing property and selling it.
The museum, like any individual or business, has two years to get its taxes paid or risks having the property sold.
Museum officials failed to make a payment due Nov. 15, and its next payment of $21,372.40 comes due May 15.
The clock on the two-year period to pay or face the sale of the land started ticking when the museum failed to make its last payment by Nov. 15.
The Silver Cos. donated 38 acres for the museum within the Celebrate Virginia South project, adjacent to Interstate 95 and overlooking the Rappahannock River. Conditions of the land transfer require that it be used for a museum dedicated to African-American heritage, a Silver Cos. official said.
Scott Little, project manager for Celebrate Virginia South, said an attorney for the Silver Cos. said the restriction on the land's use would convey with the land if it were sold.
He said the company has no plans to pay the taxes for the nonprofit museum, and would not act if a sale of the land looked imminent.
"We would not step in the way of that," Little said.
CITY CHATTER
For the slavery museum to come to fruition, communication would be required with various offices in City Hall.
But no one in any of the offices the museum would need to work with to get the facility built has heard anything apart from reports of Foster's absence.
The same is true for the city economic development and tourism staff.
"We're interested and we're concerned but we're just not getting information," said acting economic development director Karen Hedelt, who is the city's chief tourism official.
City Manager Phil Rodenberg said the project could move forward with someone besides Foster, but said he was unaware of Wilder's plans.
He said the project is a significant one for the city, and if it wasn't going forward, steps would need to begin to seek out another attraction.
He said it had been "a key component of Celebrate Virginia" and had been envisioned as an "icon to draw people off the interstate."
Architect C.C. Pei of New York designed the museum. It includes a full-scale replica slave ship enclosed in a glass-walled structure that would be visible from the highway.
Hedelt said the apparent departure of Foster and the museum's tax situation cause her concern about the project's future.
She said the museum was viewed as "a springboard" for other development and was expected to impact tourism throughout the area.
"They held out the prospect of some pretty significant marketing that we thought could benefit the whole region," Hedelt said.
Councilman Turner was concerned about Foster's apparent departure.
"I would like to know why and if there is someone else that's going to take her place," he said.
He said he contacted Wilder weeks ago and hadn't gotten a response.
"I was waiting for Mayor Wilder to be back in touch with us and give us an update," he said. "We'll have some questions for him now."
Fredericksburg Mayor Tom Tomzak stressed his longtime support for the museum and his current concern about the lack of information on the project's status.
"I'm certainly disappointed the museum has not seen fit to communicate with the council that clearly supported them," he said.
With the current status, he expressed concerns about the museum's future.
"It's not an encouraging sign, and I hope the project is not finished," he said.
Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972
Email: pgould@freelancestar.com
| OCT. 8, 2001: Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder announces Fredericksburg as the site for his U.S. National Slavery Museum. It is to be built on 38.165 acres donated by the Silver Cos. and located within the Celebrate Virginia tourism development. NOV. 15, 2007: $2,022.75 of the $20,227.45 tax bill has been paid. DECEMBER 2007: Museum starts automatic bill payment in which funds are automatically withdrawn from a bank account each month to cover taxes. FEBRUARY 2008: November tax bill, penalty and interest are paid off. MAY 12, 2008: Tax bill due May 15 is paid ($21,372.40) along with an extra $3.85. Last automatic bill payment is received. MAY 16, 2008: Executive Director Vonita Foster sends city a request to extend deadline to begin construction by one year. Council had set an Aug. 1, 2008, deadline in 2005 as a condition of approving a special-use permit to allow the museum's height to exceed what zoning normally allows. JUNE 4, 2008: Foster writes letter to city asking for exemption from real-estate taxes retroactive to 2002. Foster writes that the museum hopes to start construction within a year if exemption is granted. JUNE 10, 2008: Wilder appears before City Council to plead for the tax exemption. He says "all we need to build is money" and gives no date for the start of construction. JUNE 24, 2008: City Council votes 6-1 (with Councilman Hashmel Turner dissenting) to deny the tax exemption. SEPT. 9, 2008: City Council approves museum's request to extend by one year deadline to begin construction. New deadline is Aug. 1, 2009. NOV. 15, 2008: Real- estate tax bill of $21,368.55 goes unpaid. Penalty and interest begin accruing. Two-year clock to pay or face sale of property begins. NOVEMBER 2008: Last certain sighting of Foster at museum offices in Central Park. FEBRUARY 2009: $24,093.02 in back taxes, penalty and interest are due to city. MAY 15, 2009: Tax bill of $21,372.40 due. JAN. 1, 2011: Date city can send letter notifying museum of the sale of its 38 acres if taxes due Nov. 15, 2008, remain unpaid. The only way to stop a sale at that point is to pay the taxes in full prior to the sale. If the land is sold, city gets its tax money first. Any others owed money would be paid. Any remaining proceeds would go to the museum. |
| $75,130.21
Total paid in real-estate $24,093.02 Taxes plus penalty and interest overdue from $21,372.40 Additional tax due 10 Percentage set by city as penalty for late payment of taxes. It is also the annualized percentage rate charged for the penalty. 2 Number of years city must wait for payment of delinquent taxes before it can sell a property. Source: City treasurer's office |
