Is park honoring artifacts deal?

Salt Lake City leaders plan to meet next week with This Is the Place Heritage Park officials to discuss the care of city-owned historic artifacts.

A former park curator has accused the park of violating a contract to keep those one-of-a-kind items maintained. The park has a replica fireman's social hall, Ottinger Hall, that was built in 2000 and houses old artifacts from the city's first fire department, built in 1899.

The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, comes just a week before the Division of State Parks and Recreation board votes on whether the state-owned, privately run park can lease 12 acres of land to the University of Utah's Research Park for an administrative building and parking lot.

Board members at the park voted in March for the lease, which would bring in a much-needed $400,000 a year. The lease was the idea of developer Ellis Ivory, the chairman of the park's board, who hopes to generate revenue for the park that has been plagued by financial turmoil left over from former park leadership. Ivory is also chairman of the Deseret Morning News board of directors.

But east-bench residents have been upset about the lease plans — and so has Larry H. Miller.

The Utah Jazz owner donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to build Ottinger Hall on park grounds.

"I think it's a mistake because you can never get the land back once you develop it into something else, and that park's got the potential to be really cool," he said Wednesday. "So why give up 12 acres that 10 or 50 or 100 years from now you wish you had it back?"

According to a contract between the city and the state-owned park, the city lent the fire-department artifacts to the park under the condition that the park would care for and maintain them. The park was also required to employ a curator and keep the Ottinger Hall museum open to the public.

However, since the museum's opening, it has mostly been closed and used only for special events. The curator, Kenyon Kennard, resigned in May 2006.

Matt Dahl, the park's executive director, said Wednesday that the Ottinger Hall items have been cared for and maintained. The hall has been closed because of the living history site's limited funds, which make it difficult to keep all the buildings open. And the park is in the process of hiring various curators with different expertise on a contractual basis.

Kennard, however, has been vocal over his concern with how the historic pioneer artifacts at the park have been treated. He said that was one of the reasons he quit last year.