Embarrassed city officials in Little Rock, Arkansas, dropped an unpopular plan to increase a so-called "hamburger tax" on restaurants and hotels to buy real estate for Bill Clinton's presidential library.
At a December 15 meeting of the city board, officials agreed instead to finance most of the $15 million needed to buy 27 acres of downtown property by expanding a previously approved bond issue, reported Reuters. Those resistant to either method of raising funds prefer to fight for a public referendum.
Skip Rutherford, a Clinton intimate and coordinator of the library project, said funds from private sources will cover the $80 million for construction and endowment, but the building site was separate.
Posted December 29, 1997.