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Dallas Suburb Votes to Allow
Land Sale for a Bush Library
By ERIC O’KEEFE
Published: May 14, 2007
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UNIVERSITY
PARK, Tex., May 13 – The prospect of the George W. Bush Presidential
Library’s being built on the campus of Southern Methodist University
received a lift over the weekend when voters in this Dallas suburb
passed a proposition that paves the way for the city to sell a piece
of parkland to the university.
The ballot proposal — passed on a vote of 1,782 to 420 on Saturday — will
allow this city of some 23,000 residents to sell Potomac Park, an undeveloped
strip that could prove important to plans for the presidential library.
The pioneering Caruth family donated the eight-tenths-of-an-acre parcel
in the 1950s to University Park, five miles north of downtown Dallas.
“S.M.U. and University Park have grown and flourished together, and this
outcome represents our shared dedication to enhancing the quality of both town
and gown,” the university’s president, R. Gerald Turner, said on
the city’s Web site.
Officials at Southern Methodist notified the city of their interest
in buying the greenbelt last June. Possible uses announced this year
included student housing, intramural fields or the presidential library,
were it awarded to the university.
The city’s Web site said S.M.U. would pay fair market value for
the property and reimburse the city for expenses associated with the
sale, including the election costs. According to the city’s Web
site, an outside appraiser valued Potomac Park at $1.6 million last
year, although it will be reappraised.
Proceeds will pay for other park projects, said Mayor James H. Holmes
III of University Park in a statement on the Web site.
President Bush has not formally announced where he wants to establish
his presidential library but has said that he favors S.M.U. He and
his wife, Laura, are former residents of Dallas and are Methodists.
Mrs. Bush is a graduate of S.M.U. and is a member of its board of trustees.
In December, Donald P. Evans, the former federal commerce secretary,
revealed that the George W. Bush Presidential Library Site Selection
Committee was entering exclusive discussions with S.M.U. to build a
library and a museum.
Planners also say the library would include a policy institute that
would report to a foundation established by Mr. Bush, a divisive issue
on the 11,000-student campus.
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