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McKeon saves mule museum money |
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Friday, 10 August 2007 |
 Ah, the mule ? a beast of burden, trailblazer of the American West and staple of the Eastern Sierra packing industry. A museum chronicling and honoring the history of the American mule is planned for Bishop, and with Rep. Buck McKeon?s continued support the project should be getting a $50,000 boost from federal funding. File photo By Jon Klusmire
Register Staff
Maybe it was the mules’ big, distinctive ears that got the attention of an irate congressman who launched an unsuccessful attack on the $50,000 Congress recently earmarked for the planned mule museum in Bishop.
Representative Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) got a burr under his saddle about the mule money, but Inyo County’s congressman, Rep. Buck McKeon, circled the Borax wagons and corralled enough votes to send Flake back to the barnyard from whence he came.
McKeon has secured $50,000 for a long-planned museum in Bishop dedicated to mules and their role in the settlement and development of the West.
Flake (insert your own joke here) fluttered to the floor of the House of Representatives and pointed out that there is a 20-Mule Team Museum in Boron, and said he wasn’t sure that California needed two mule-related museums. Flake suggested the Bishop museum funding was just a bit of pork that could easily be pulled off of Congress’ spending menu.
“It is time for the American taxpayer to say ‘whoa’ and stand up for fiscal sanity and stop the practice of earmarking like we are doing,” he said, according to previously published reports. He called the Bishop mule museum a pet project.
Ah, but one man’s pork is another man’s bread and butter. And “wasting” tax money on a “pet project” can also be seen as simply giving back some of the tax money folks send to Washington.
“The people in Bishop pay taxes,” McKeon reminded one and all, according to press reports. “I think $50,000 is a good contribution to give these people,” especially since it’s essentially “money that they have sent here (Washington).”
And while Boron might have a long history of mules and mining, Bishop is the home of Mule Days, for goodness sake, the premier mule event in the county consisting of a week of mules, mule-lovers and mule action including jumping mules and the longest, non-motorized parade in the nation country.
And packers? They carved the trails still being used to reach the Sierra backcountry by hikers and mule riders, started Mule Days and remain a living legacy and vital link to the past and future of the area.
That’s why Bishop residents and the Sierra packing industry have been planning the American Mule Museum and Heritage Center for years. Both the City of Bishop and Inyo County recently passed resolutions asking McKeon to spur the idea along with some federal money.
Besides the obvious mule-related reasons for a museum, McKeon also noted that more than 95 percent of Inyo County is owned by the federal government and tourism carries the local economy.
The press reports said the planned museum was named the National Mule and Packer Museum, and while that’s a bit different than the American Mule Museum and Heritage Center, everyone gets the idea and getting the money is the first priority, not the name.
McKeon might know something that Owens Valley folks don’t quite know when it comes to funding the planned museum.
He said that the City of Los Angeles (the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power?) was willing to put up $2 million for the planned museum.
That would be dandy, especially if the City of L.A. and LADWP actually know that McKeon has volunteered the two to spend so much money and time on the project. McKeon also said local sources would contribute another $2 million to the project.
All that big-money talk sounds like a story someone told around the campfire after a few pulls on a jug of whiskey, but what the heck. If our congressman, in the middle of defending the honor of the mule, needed to convince his colleagues that L.A. and Inyo County have millions on hand and ready to jump out of the gate whenever someone says “giddy up, mule,” who’s gonna argue?
At any rate, Flake’s amendment to lasso the $50,000 and pull it out of the budget failed by a vote of 352-69.
Getting a check will depend on getting that particular budget bill passed by the Senate, too, and signed by the president.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 10 September 2007 )
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