Bond for natural history museum will be on ballot

SALT LAKE CITY — A public hearing Tuesday on a $15 million bond initiative to help pay for a new and improved Utah Museum of Natural History drew no public comment at the Salt Lake County Council chambers.

The council voted in August to put the bond before voters, and the public hearing and approval of the wording of the referendum on Sept. 21 were the last steps the council needed to take to get the resolution on the Nov. 2 ballot. Should voters in Salt Lake county approve the 15-year bond, residents will see an annual property tax increase of $2.40 on a home valued at $265,000 — the average home value in the county.

Councilman Randy Horiuchi said providing "experiences both of a cultural and an educational nature" is important to the council, and the new museum will help serve that end.

"It was kind of a tough call because it's a university facility. But it really caters mostly to our residents and our county," Horiuchi said. "We didn't want to (pay for) the whole thing, but we felt it was really appropriate for us to utilize our bonding capability to help them with a small portion."

The total price tag for the new Museum of Natural History is $102 million. The museum has raised $86.5 million for the project over the last eight years.

The new museum would be at 301 Wakara Way, just south of Red Butte Garden, and it will nearly double the size of the current museum on President's Circle on campus, where it has resided since 1963.

e-mail: mfarmer@desnews.com