Past meets the future

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An Internet discussion at www.archaeology.miningco.com makes the Greater Des Moines leaders who are eager to see the new Science Center of Iowa take shape appear like a marauding band of capitalists dancing on the grave of early civilization.

The Web blog, in reaction to archaeological oversight at the Science Center’s new site at Southwest Fifth Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, even goes so far as to include a link to the Polk County Assessor’s Office Web page that shows a picture of Science Center board member Tom Hutchins’ modest home and includes rhetoric that attempts to paint him as a fat cat. In another post, protestors are encouraged to enlist activists who aren’t shy about using violence to stop construction.

The Web discussion mirrors our frustration over the past several months. The debate on the Science Center project too often has centered on personalities such as Hutchins and Michael Gartner, chairman of the Vision Iowa board that approved funding for the project and majority owner of the Iowa Cubs baseball team that plays at nearby Sec Taylor Stadium, and what backers of the project possibly could gain by building the Science Center at the site of the first Fort Des Moines settlement in the mid-1800s.

We know this about Gartner: We’d be hard-pressed to find another person in Iowa who loves the state more and has a greater desire to see it thrive. He’s sometimes a firebrand, making him an easy target. But it is simply out of character for the man who has held promoters of Vision Iowa projects at bay until they came up with additional sources of cash to discard those ethics for his own personal gain.

It’s always easier to point fingers at the players than it is to tackle perplexing problems, such as one that will resurface again as Des Moines leaders search for ways to re-energize the city’s core. What is the correct balance between maintaining respect for the past while building a vision for the future?

If a find as significant as the historic 1607 James Fort palisade recently discovered in Jamestown, Va., were unearthed at the Science Center site, of course construction would stop. Though interesting, a few broken pieces of pottery and remnants of some 19th-century structures can’t do for the city’s future what James Fort can for historic Jamestown or the new Science Center and related Capital City Vision Projects can for downtown Des Moines.

We should respect the past. In doing so, however, we can’t sacrifice what’s best for the city’s future.