Burgum sees 'low chance' of proposed presidential library referendum passing

Gov. Doug Burgum says it would be an interesting outcome for North Dakota voters to reject a budget provision for a proposed Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library if enough donations were already raised to build it.

Dickinson electrician Riley Kuntz and other organizers are petitioning to place a referendum on the June 2020 primary ballot to repeal the $50 million endowment fund that state lawmakers approved earlier this year for operation and maintenance of the library planned for Medora.

That endowment is available only after $100 million in private donations is raised, which Burgum said he expects to be done by June 2020. He championed the library during the 2019 legislative session for its potential tourism impacts.

Kuntz has said the library is a "gross misappropriation of funds" for a project that honors a president not from North Dakota, while other libraries have been built in presidents' home states. Roosevelt was from New York but ranched and hunted in North Dakota's Badlands in the 1880s. An effort about a decade ago to build a presidential library for him in New York failed.

Read more: https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/burgum-sees-low-chance-of-proposed-presidential-library-referendum-passing/article_9dc75baa-16e7-5980-a0d5-8e2bd5c66313.html