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It's fair to say Virginia's government is not consumed by Virginia's Explore Park. Emily Lucier, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, said she couldn't find a lawyer to comment on a proposal to lease the park to a Missouri nonprofit company. "They've never heard of Explore Park," she said. The state's Department of Conservation and Recreation has heard of the park. It even has a copy of the proposed 50-year lease, but the department hasn't had it long. "Almost everything that we know about it is what we've been reading in the newspaper," said department spokesman Gary Waugh. The attorney general's office referred questions to the Department of Conservation and Recreation. That agency passed the questions back to the attorney general's office, which suggested Greg Haley was the man to talk to. Haley, the lawyer for the board that oversees Explore, said he couldn't comment on anything. In the absence of answers, questions flourish. "It opens up a myriad of what-ifs," state Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, said of the proposed deal. The Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority, which oversees Explore, may lease the park's 1,155 acres in Roanoke and Bedford counties to Virginia Living Histories for five decades. From 2000 until October, Virginia Living Histories was called Western Living Histories. Its mission, according to papers filed with the Missouri secretary of state, was "to increase the knowledge of the general public about historic events of the Old West and involve the general public in historic re-enactments of early western daily activities." According to the company's filings with the Internal Revenue Service, it hasn't spent any money to accomplish that mission. A draft of the lease, obtained by The Roanoke Times last week, would allow the company to dismantle Explore Park's living history exhibits, move the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitors Center, sublease parts of the park and mortgage anything the company builds there. It also allows the company to avoid paying rent. In return, Virginia Living Histories promises to invest at least $20 million in the park at milepost 115 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. That promise of investment has driven closed-door negotiations between Larry Vander Maten, president of Virginia Living Histories, and a secretive core group within the VRFA and the River Foundation, Explore's fund-raising organization. Without authorization from the board, River Foundation president Tom Brock and Stan Lanford, a member of the foundation and the VRFA, began negotiations more than a year ago. The lease those discussions produced - a contract prepared by Virginia Living Histories - was presented to the VRFA on March 4. Ten day later, copies were sent to legislators, Brock, Lanford, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and Tayloe Murphy, the state's secretary of natural resources. The VRFA still has not released the contract to the public, though it has scheduled a public meeting on the issue on Thursday. Though early news stories described it as a state park - because the state spent $6 million to buy the site - Explore was born of private-sector initiative. That initiative soon sought government support. Legislation creating the VRFA passed the General Assembly in 1986. Two years later, nearly $24 million in state and federal funds had been committed to the project. In the intervening 17 years, the federal and state governments have added less than $6 million. Local governments have put in more than $5 million in cash and services. Private sources have added more than $12 million. Even with more than $47 million in contributions, Explore has spent most of its history scraping by. State funding has virtually dried up, though there is $200,000 in next year's budget for the park. That funding will end with June 2006, the same time that Roanoke County's five-year commitment to fund the park ends. In 2004, the park had nearly $1.2 million in operating expenses. Admissions amounted to $95,459. Bell compares Explore to an undercapitalized small business. At some point you have to decide, he said: Do you pump in enough cash to make it work? Or pull the plug? In that light, he said, the VRFA must consider Vander Maten's offer. Del. William Fralin, R-Roanoke, agrees. "I have an open mind about it," he said. "It's a terrific asset out there. We need to be careful what we do with it." Del. Onzlee Ware, D-Roanoke, said turning to a private operator might be a good idea. Local government can't keep footing the bill, he said. State Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, sounded more circumspect. "It could potentially be promising, but I think they need to go slow," he said. "I'd be cautious. They need to know what the man's plan is for this." Bell said he thinks that's unreasonable. "Nobody can just sit down and say, 'This is exactly what I'm going to do,'" Bell said. But the proposed lease gives Virginia Living Histories three years after the contract is signed to decide what - if anything - it will do with the park. "That's putting the cart before the horse," Edwards said. "It seems awfully open-ended." Rupert Cutler, a Roanoke city councilman and a former executive director of the park, worries about the length of the lease. "Fifty years is a hell of a long time," he said. Cutler said he would prefer an incremental plan that wouldn't turn the whole park over to a developer at once. First, he said, there should be a plan. Then, there should be an environmental impact study and meaningful public comment. The plan, he said, should offer alternatives, including the possibility of doing nothing. If that means Explore closes, Cutler said, the land would revert to state control, perhaps to become a state park. "That, to me, is not a really bad result," he said. On the Net: |
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