Here's what Klink's hometown paper had to say about the signing of the record of decision by the National Park Service.
Thursday, November 25, 1999
By Ann McFeatters, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette National
Bureau
WASHINGTON -- After a contentious two-year debate over how to restore the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield, the National Park Service yesterday finalized plans to move the current visitors center out of Gettysburg, saying it will make the battle site more authentic and meaningful to visitors.
Local businesses had complained that the park service plan for Gettysburg National Military Park could hurt their profits and drive some into bankruptcy. They said the plan was railroaded through without enough attention to their concerns.
The park service's Northeast regional director, Marie Rust, who signed off on the plan, was unavailable to answer questions. Her office issued a statement saying the improvements "should result in dramatic increases in visitor spending in the economy."
The park service held 30 public meetings and received 4,000 comments on its plans to improve protection for a renowned unique painting of the 1863 battle, rehabilitate the battlements and improve the battle interpretation for visitors in a new $39.3 million center that won't be located on the Union Army line. The new visitors center, to be built with help from private developers, is to be about a mile out of town.
The park, which draws 1.5 million visitors each year, earlier this year was named one of the 10 most endangered sites in the national park system. The roof of the famed Cyclorama Center, which features the immense circular painting that shows how the battle proceeded, was damaged by leaking water in April.
The park commemorates the turning point of the Civil War, also known as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. But the Union victory was costly: More than 51,000 soldiers on both sides were killed, taken prisoner or wounded.
Rep. Ron Klink, D-Murrysville, who opposed the park service plan, yesterday said he thought it was "unfortunate that the National Park Service had decided to disregard the will of the majority of people in Gettysburg, the House of Representatives and the concerns of individual members of Congress. ..."
An aide said Klink's objection to the process was not so much how the park would be reconstructed but that "the people who lived in Gettysburg who voiced opposition to the plan hadn't been recognized."
Last summer, in the heat of the debate, Klink, a four-term congressman who will challenge Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., next year, said: "It's an uphill fight. It's the second battle of Gettysburg. In 1863, the federal government was on our side. This time, they appear to be against us."
Klink has been critical that the visitor center's private developer is hosting a Santorum fund raiser.
Santorum and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., have promoted the park service plan. Yesterday, Santorum said he was glad that the park service had finally decided to implement it.
"It's important we get a first-class visitors center at what, to my mind, is the most significant battle site in the country," he said.
Santorum noted happily that the Wills House in downtown Gettysburg would now be part of the park. The old house is where Abraham Lincoln stayed and put the finishing touches on his Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863.
"We are moving the visitors center away from town to reconfigure the battlefield the way it was then," he said. "Having the current center sitting in the middle of the Union line is, frankly, historically a disaster. We need to move it."
Part of the overall plan is to move public parking areas and "reinstate the pattern of wooded and open areas present during the battle." Engineering reports will decide the size and location of parking lots, the park service said.
A new museum to house battlefield artifacts and the Cyclorama will be built and moved outside the battlefield itself, in part to provide restoration of Ziegler's Grove and the center of the Union battle line on the battle's third day.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt earlier this year said the plan was a good one and would "help restore historical integrity to some of America's most hallowed ground. It moves the landscape and the battlefield much closer to the way things looked to the brave men who fought there in July 1863 in the battle that changed the course of the Civil War."
The Gettysburg park includes the major battle action area, the Soldiers' National Cemetery and the battlefield commemorative area. There has been increasing concern that the area around the battlefield has become too commercialized and has distracted from what the park service calls the park's educational and memorial purposes.
But Gettysburg residents still fear that the new center's concessions will hurt their businesses, and tourists will spend less time shopping and eating downtown.
The plan also calls for improving storage and preservation of battle memorabilia, rehabilitating historical features of the field of Pickett's charge and removing non-historical vegetation. About 20 acres of prime farmland would be converted to battlefield restoration, but the park service said 22 acres where the current storage facilities and museum are located will be restored to historical agricultural conditions.
Park service officials said it would take about two years for private fund-raising of at least $27.4 million for the center. About $11.9 million is to come from commercial loans. Then design and construction will take two more years.
Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/19991125parka2.asp
Here's a great editorial from The Harrisburg PA Sunday Patriot-News published on Sunday, July 18, 1999:
KLINK AMENDMENT A CLUNKER
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is absolutely right. It was "irresponsible" for the House of Representatives to approve an amendment blocking plans for a public-private partnership to build a visitor center at Gettysburg National Military Park.
This clunker of an amendment was the brainchild of Rep. Ron Klink, a Westmoreland County Democrat who plans to challenge Santorum, R-Pittsburgh, who is up for re-election next year. Santorum supports the visitors center proposal developed by the National Park Service and endorsed by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.
If Klink takes serious issue with private interests putting up the money to build a visitors center near the site of the nation's most hallowed ground, then he had a simple alternative. He could have proposed instead that the government pay the full cost of the visitors center, an appropriation that should have been made long ago.
There is no question that a new center is needed to protect the many thousands of artifacts from the Civil War's most important battle that are deteriorating in the current facility. But since Congress has shown no interest in building it, there is no other reasonable alternative than to proceed with the public-private partnership.
Klink became interested in this issue, which has been fully aired, debated, and considered, only after deciding to run for the Senate. Doing nothing, which is what Klink's amendment would achieve, is unacceptable.
The Senate needs to reject the amendment as the mindless
inspiration of a political opportunist, and allow this nationally
significant project to go forward.
Let's move on Gettysburg visitor
center.In the rolling hills around Gettysburg, there's once again talk of wholesale casualties - this time, if the National Park Service charges ahead with its creative plan for a makeover of the battlefield's visitor center.
No bloodshed, of course. The feared victims are the merchants who serve the tourist trade around the hallowed territory of Pickett's Charge.
Because the Park Service would build its new visitor center and museum about a half-mile distant from the present site atop Cemetery Hill, merchants nearby worry that their livelihoods will retreat along with the footsteps of Gettysburg's 1.7 million annual visitors.
The Gettysburg Borough Council has lined up against the plan. And a Western Pennsylvania congressman with Senate ambitions - Democratic Rep. Ron Klink - succeeded in getting U.S. House approval of a measure that would halt the project for a year.
The forces now rallying under the banner of Visa and MasterCard should not carry the day. Commercial interests, who've had ample say already, should not delay or alter any further a plan that makes sense financially and serves history, too.
At a time when congressional funding isn't even close to keeping pace with national park needs, the Park Service should be lauded for a plan to overhaul Gettysburg without tapping the treasury. The new buildings would cost nearly $40 million; they'd offer desperately needed archival space to safeguard thousands of deteriorating artifacts and a new home for Paul Philippoteaux's beloved, 360-degree mural of Pickett's Charge. All that would be built with donations and fee-backed bonds. Income would be derived from a theater, cafeteria and bookshop.
Rep. Klink professes only to want to broker a truce, arguing that the project requires more thought. It's hard to imagine any new thoughts, though, after years of verbal skirmishing, numerous hearings and several plan revisions to reflect critics' concerns.
Returning to the drawing board is unwarranted - a view shared by the Senate, where Pennsylvania Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter have taken aim at the Klink amendment, vowing to remove it during budget negotiations. May their aim be true.
Descendants of the 136th New York State Volunteer Infantry
Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg
National Parks and Conservation Association
National Trust for Historic Preservation
September 27, 1999
Dear Appropriations Conferee:
As the House and Senate meet to resolve the FY 2000 Interior Appropriations bill
(H.R. 2466/S. 1292), the undersigned organizations urge you to strike a House provision pertaining to Gettysburg National Military Park. During House debate of H.R. 2466, Rep. Klink successfully offered an amendment that would prohibit the National Park Service (NPS) from expending funds to implement the park's General Management Plan (GMP). We strongly oppose this provision.
Gettysburg is suffering from crumbling buildings, the deterioration of priceless Civil War artifacts and the historical Cyclorama painting, ill-placed visitor facilities, and inadequate interpretation of the Civil War context surrounding the battles at Gettysburg. Responsible implementation of the long-awaited GMP will return Gettysburg to the world-class national park it should be.
Rep. Klink's amendment would undermine the goals of the GMP. It would thwart the formulation of a long-term solution for preserving the park's priceless Civil War artifacts and archives and prevent the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation from raising funds to construct a critically needed new museum and visitor center. Strongly supported plans to rehabilitate key areas of the Gettysburg battlefield and the Soldiers National Cemetery to their historical 1863 conditions would be halted, and the disintegration of the historical Cyclorama painting would be allowed to continue. Additionally, the provision would inhibit NPS from providing a broader interpretation of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War, especially the social and political conditions leading to the war.
Gettysburg is America's classroom on the Civil War. The park's GMP would preserve the park's rich historical and battlefield resources for future generations to appreciate and learn from, and should be allowed to move forward. We urge that Rep. Klink's amendment not be included in the final version of the Interior Appropriations bill. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
National Parks and Conservation Association
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg
Descendants of the 136th New York State Volunteer Infantry
To the United States Senate,
On behalf of the members of our organization, we ask you to help end the Congressional block that has been placed in the House of Representatives on the implementation of the Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP) General Management Plan (GMP). The vote taken hastily in the House on July 14, 1999, to attach H.A. 278, "the Klink Amendment" (a.k.a. H.R. 2438-- the mislabeled "Gettysburg Preservation Act") to H.R. 2466, has confounded us beyond belief. Rep. Klink�s last minute rider, to a necessary Interior appropriations bill, was partisan politics at its worst, and it is jeopardizing a national treasure. Klink�s misguided legislation should be eliminated!
The National Park Service plan calls for the removal of modern buildings and parking lots from the Union battle line at Cemetery Ridge where 34 Union regiments fought and over 900 soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured during the Battle of Gettysburg. A new Visitor Center is badly needed, will not be a Disney-type park / shopping mall (as Rep. Klink would have you believe), and won�t be located on hallowed ground. The current Visitor Center is on very hallowed ground, unlike the proposed Visitor Center which will NOT be. As historian Ed Bearss wrote in a March 1998 peer review report, "the trade off of development of the LeVan tract as a center for visitor facilities, to facilitate their relocation from north of Cemetery Ridge and Ziegler�s Grove, and restoration of those key sites to their appearance circa 1863, is vital to an understanding and appreciation of what happened when this hallowed landscape turned red in 1863."
Please refer to the following articles (found elsewhere on our web site) that epitomize our group's position: "Park Plan Honors Hallowed Ground" - USA TODAY published- 6/24/99- (letter to the editor authored by our organization); "Gettysburg - Blood and Parking" - editorial of The Buffalo News, published- 3/6/99; and "Klink Amendment a Clunker" - editorial of the Harrisburg, PA Sunday Patriot-News, published- 7/18/99. We were also interviewed by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (11/11/98), York Sunday News (2/14/99), and York Daily Record (2/17/99), and were mentioned in their articles published on the dates listed in parentheses.
We strongly support the National Park Service (NPS) GMP proposal that includes "the rehabilitation of this key battlefield site, so that the battlefield can properly be interpreted. It must be regarded as a historic mission of the highest order", stated the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in a decision handed down on May 10, 1999. In June 1977, the Advisory Council published A Plan to Preserve the Historic Resources of Gettysburg, that called for the relocation of the Cyclorama Building and the nearby NPS Visitor Center because they were "intrusions near the cemetery and the climactic scene of the battle."
How many decades must we continue to wait for the wrongs to be corrected at Gettysburg?
Our group attended, and submitted written testimony for, the House National Parks and Public Lands subcommittee oversight hearing held on February 11, 1999 (the first page of our testimony is on pages 119 & 120 of the official hearing record as shown on the Internet). At that hearing, the National Parks and Conservation Association, an NPS watchdog group, called the Gettysburg planning process the most extensive public involvement process it has ever seen. More than 30 public meetings were held and the draft GMP was based upon 3,728 comments from individuals, organizations, and agencies. More than 500 comments were received on the draft GMP, and almost 75% of the comments supported the preferred alternative in the GMP, including the new Visitor Center and Museum.
We have found the NPS process to be more than fair. Congress should not put asunder the views of those in the majority, including our group, that support the National Park Service plan for Gettysburg National Military Park.
Respectfully,
The Descendants of the 136th New York Infantry Regiment
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