November 15, 2008 06:19 pm
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By Andy Ostmeyer
aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com
LAMAR, Mo. — Hoping to give a shot in the arm to their struggling community, Lamar city leaders put forth a modest proposal a couple years ago.
Add the small frame house where Harry Truman was born in a downstairs bedroom in 1884 to the National Park Service. Uncle Sam already owns and manages Truman’s last home in Independence and his family’s Grandview farm as part of the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site.
Bringing the Lamar home on board would give that site added prestige and make it — and the community — more high profile and help draw tourists. Work to improve the site also would mean jobs and an infusion of construction money for Lamar, which lost its largest employer in 2007 and still struggles with double-digit unemployment.
Besides, the community hasn’t been happy with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which currently owns and manages the home. State and city leaders developed a master plan for the home in 1997 that included adding a mule barn — Truman’s father was a mule trader — a historic school and a media center for children.
With that plan in mind the city moved utility lines, added curbs and gutters in the neighborhood and acquired several nearby properties. The state also purchased some nearby properties and did work on the historic home, replacing windows and the wood-shingle roof, but in the mind of city leaders such as City Manager Lynn Calton, little else has happened to complete their vision.
“Eleven years later, the only thing we’ve done is just infrastructure work,” said Calton, who believes the site is on the bottom of the state’s list of priorities.
“It has been a slow process,” Mayor Keith Divine acknowledged last week. “I think people would like to see that go forward a little quicker.”
But now Lamar’s modest proposal is tied up in a controversial U.S. Senate bill that, according to The Hill, a leading Capitol newspaper, has evolved into a “grudge match between the majority leader and the chamber’s most defiant Republican.”
That could happen this week.
‘Critical piece’
Nobody in Congress may be a bigger fan of Truman than U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, who represents Lamar and the rest of Missouri’s 4th District.
Nearly 80 years ago, Skelton’s father was a local lawyer and prominent Democrat who met Truman when the latter came to Lexington to dedicate the Madonna of the Trail statue. Truman was a commissioner from Jackson County at the time. One thing led to another, and Ike found himself befriending Truman, too.
When Bess Truman died in 1982, Skelton, who was then a congressman, worked with others from the Missouri delegation to make Truman’s Independence home a national historic site. Today, visitors can still see the former president’s hat hanging on a coat rack just as he left it.
Skelton’s later efforts resulted in adding nearby homes that belonged to Truman’s relatives to the historic site and the farm in Grandview where, according to Truman’s mother, the future president developed his “common sense.”
So when Skelton got the letter from Divine asking about transferring the Lamar home to federal jurisdiction, he jumped at the chance.
“ ... I was honored to oblige,” Skelton testified before a House subcommittee last year. “In my view, and in the view of the local community, doing so would add perhaps the most critical piece of Harry Truman’s life, the place of his birth, to the current group of national historic sites that honor the legacy of our 33rd president.”
What’s more, Skelton noted in his testimony, this could foster economic development in Lamar and Barton County, the kind of stimulus the community needed after O’Sullivan Industries let go of more than 700 workers last year and closed its doors.
Buck stops
Skelton’s proposal for a feasibility study, wrapped into a larger national parks bill, sailed through the House in December of 2007 by a vote of 326-79.
At the same time, other public lands legislation was moving through Congress. There are proposals to protect land in West Virginia and Oregon as wilderness, there are bills to designate trails and shield rivers from development, to preserve the birthplace home of former President Bill Clinton, protect historic battlefields and more.
In all, there are about 160 pieces of legislation dealing with public lands that were rolled into one large Yellowstone-size package called the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2008.
It’s known as a “Christmas tree” bill, explained Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policies for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a not-for-profit group that supports free-market ideas, because there is something in it for everybody.
His group opposes the bill and recently sent a letter to all U.S. senators asking them to reject what Ebell outlines as a land grab that would restrict energy development, among other things.
According to The Hill, the bill includes an equal mix of Democratic and Republican proposals.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told his colleagues that he wanted to use the Lame Duck session next week — which is traditionally used to orient new senators — to debate the bill.
Enter Tom Coburn.
On Coburn’s Web site there are links such as “Pork Busters,” and “Stopping Secret Spending,” as well as a national debt clock. Last week, it was $9.6 trillion and climbing.
Coburn is where the buck stops, at least as far as public land issues are concerned.
“Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is placing a hold on this National Parks bill, explained Rebecca Loving, spokesperson for Skelton.
In a press release, Coburn described the $3 billion Omnibus Public Lands bill as “earmark-laden,” “loaded with frivolous projects and radical environmental provisions,” “misplaced priorities” and “egregious.”
One proposal, he noted, would spend $1 billion on a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California.
“At $2 million a head, each salmon would be worth far more than its weight in gold,” he wrote.
Another $3.5 million would be used to celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine, Fla., in 2015; $5 million would be spent on botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida.
And $1 million would be spent on feasibility studies for new units to the National Park Service, including Truman’s Home, between 2009 and 2011.
“While the majority may complain about my ‘unprecedented obstruction,’ I make no apologies for denying senators the privilege of passing this reckless and irresponsible bill ...” Coburn said in a statement.
“Already the National Park Service has a $9 billion backlog,” said Don Tatro, press secretary for Coburn. “We need to fix what the backlog is before we start adding new things.”
The backlog for Missouri’s park units runs to $35.3 million, Tatro said, including $1.4 million in needed work for the existing Harry S. Truman National Historic Site in Independence and Grandview.
More than 100 groups oppose the Omnibus bill, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he said.
As for Truman’s birthplace, Tatro suggested it might be best left in state hands, or perhaps the community could create an endowment to pay for proposed improvements.
“How do we keep increasing the national park service when we can’t pay for what we have?” he asked.
Riding it out
Meanwhile, numerous conservation, wilderness and environmental organizations favor the bill.
“The reason that your bill and 150 bills all got bundled together is that he (Coburn) put a hold on every single bill from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That is the committee of jurisdiction,” said Paul Spitler, spokesman for the Wilderness Society, which supports the bill.
Since nothing got through this year on its own, the strategy was then to bundle the bills together, because 53 senators will have bills in this package, he said.
Said Spitler: “Each of these bills has been vetted. They each have a purpose and a public benefit.”
Maria Speiser, spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, said the senator not only supports the plan to move the Lamar home to federal jurisdiction, but also supports the Omnibus bill.
“Unless something changes with it, it looks like something she’ll vote for,” Speiser said.
“Skelton’s bill in the Senate has not been controversial at all,” she added. “The controversy with the Omnibus bill is related to other issues in it.”
Shana Marchio, a representative of U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, said he also favors the Lamar proposal, but wants to see the full and final version of the bill before he decides how to vote.
Loving, with Skelton’s office, said: “We’ll see how it goes (this) week. If it does not pass in the 110th Congress, Ike is going to reintroduce it in the 111th.”
If that happens, it’s back to square one for Lamar, which already has waited nearly 11 years since the original management plans were drawn up, and going on two years since they approached Skelton with their proposal.
“You have to be patient,” Divine, the mayor, counseled. “You just have to ride these things out. There is not a whole lot you can do.”
But the city has a lot riding on Truman.
When Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt named Lamar a DREAM city last month, he noted the role Truman’s birthplace plays for the town. It already attracts more than 17,000 visitors annually, and the city is planning celebrations for Truman’s 125th birthday in May 2009.
Lamar also wants to improve the link between Truman’s birthplace and the downtown square using streetscaping, banners and more.
“Truman is our claim to fame,” said Nancy Curless, director of the Barton County Chamber of Commerce.
Calton, the city manager, is anxious for somebody — anybody — to help the city.
“It’s kind of a little small piece (of the bill) but it could be considered a stimulus package,” he said. “This is going to require construction and infrastructure work. We don’t care if it’s federal or state, frankly, just somebody do something.”
Home legacy
Harry Truman lived in the Lamar home for 11 months. It was acquired by the United Auto Workers and in 1959 donated to the state of Missouri.
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Photos
Globe/Roger Nomer
Don McConaughey rakes leaves at the house where Harry Truman was born in 1884.