Senator GLENN. Also with us today, but not on the listed group, is Robert Schroeder, executive director of the Regional Planning and Coordinating Commission of Greene County.

Do you have a statement to make separate from those that have been made?

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT SCHROEDER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, REGIONAL PLANNING AND COORDINATING COMMISSION,

GREENE COUNTY

Mr. SCHROEDER. Yes, Senator Glenn, I do.

Senator Glenn, Congressman Brown, it is both feasible and suitable to establish a National Center of Afro-American History and Culture at Wilberforce, Ohio. This statement is based upon factual analysis conducted independently by the Regional Planning and Coordinating Commission of Greene County, Ohio, and the National Park Service as reflected in the feasibility/suitability study for a National Museum of Afro-American History and Culture of Wilberforce, Ohio.

It is further emphasized that the determination of feasibility/ suitability is based upon 11 objective criteria developed as a yardstick by the National Park Service in order to determine if a museum of national scope is in fact feasible and suitable.

I wish at this time to briefly recapitulate facts supporting this position but will submit for the record a more detailed evaluation prior to the May 5, 1980, closing of the record. I will restrict my comments to the seven technical criteria.

The proposed museum should be within a day's trip of major population centers. The Wilberforce area is centrally located within the 10th largest 90-minute market area in the country.

Within a driving time of 11⁄2 hours, 4.1 million people would have direct access to this facility.

The secondary market area, up to 550 miles, which would require at least a one-night stay includes approximately two-thirds of the total U.S. population or 135 million people.

The proposed museum should be accessible to major travel and recreation cooridors.

The museum should have adequate vehicular access.

The area should have adequate public transportation.

Wilberforce is centrally located in a triangle formed by Interstate 70, 71, and 75. It is only a short drive to Wilberforce from any interchange with these major transportation arterials.

Xenia, Greene County, and the State of Ohio, are striving to make this access even more convenient through completion of the U.S. Route 35 bypass with U.S. Route 35 and Bickett Road. You would bypass from 68 to Route 35 and U.S. Route 38 east to Interstate 71.

This obviously will eliminate a drive through Xenia for visitors. As indicated before, subsequent to the completion of the Park Service study great strides have been made in public transit to serve the proposed facility. The recently formed Greene County Transit Board, under the aegis of the Greene County Commissioners, now provides regular service to the Wilberforce community. Additionally, the Dayton RTA has recently become a countywide service which will link up with the Greene County system effectively providing mass transit from most population centers in the Dayton SMSA as well as local airports and intrastate rail and bus line stations.

The proposed area should have sufficient buildable land available in good location and at reasonable cost.

The community services and facilities which will form the support infrastructure for the museum are sufficient to provide adequate service.

Water is provided from the city of Xenia through a 10-inch main from a well field with a potential yield of 10 million gallons per day-certainly sufficient to provide any demand at the facility prior to museum construction.

Additionally, police, fire and health care services are adequate to serve the proposed national museum.

Specific sites within the Wilberforce community with sufficient size for the facility have been identified. The Colonel Young Home Site is specifically interesting because of its place in local and national history. Additionally, the site possesses topographic features which would allow construction of a facility without intrusion on the community and the historic Young Home. Placement of the facility at this location would also give one a sense of architectural scale within a setting of Central State University and Wilberforce University campuses.

The economic implications of the proposed facility have been scrutinized in Greene County as the museum would have economic impacts on the local communities of Wilberforce and Xenia as well as the surrounding region. After analyzing the initial construction phase and secondary impacts of income and employment, the posi

tive economic effects would most certainly outweigh any negative effects.

The 3-year construction phase is estimated to support a total job equivalence of 430 people.

The museum operational work force is estimated at 50 persons. Total visitor expenditure amounts estimate at $2,125,000, which would translate into regional job equivalence of 250 per annum. Adjustment of these annual employment equivalents results in an estimate of 207 direct annual employment equivalents of this project.

Assuming a multiplier effect of 1.0, which is considered substantially low, an additional 207 indirect or induced local service jobs would be created.

The total annual employment equivalent may then be estimated at 414 units.

Final analysis of the increase in the annual public burden, which is estimated at $136,000, subtracted from the increase in annual fiscal returns, or $380,000, results in an estimated net economic gain of $244,000 to the local community.

In summary, then, we continue to support the establishment of the National Center of Afro-American History and Culture and Commission. We support the determination as submitted by the National Park Service, that the establishment of the National Center of Afro-American History and Culture is both suitable and feasible at Wilberforce, Ohio, and more specifically on the site of the Colonel Charles Young Home.

We further urge deliberate adoption and execution of the tenants of S. 1814.

Thank you.

Senator GLENN. Thank you all very much for your testimony. It was excellent testimony. It will be included in the record.

I only have one question I guess, and that would be for Mr. Flatter. I gather from your testimony that there is absolute support to provide the physical facilities as far as sewer, water, bridge, all the other utilities that might be involved in this from the commissioners' level and general support for this in the community. Would that be a fair statement?

Mr. FLATTER. Yes, Senator Glenn. That is a fair statement. Commissioners and all of the governments we have had contact with in the county are in full support of the site and purpose. I know of no opposition to it.

Senator GLENN. Thank you very much.
Congressman Brown?

Representative BROWN. I have no questions. I just want to express to these four leaders in the community and through them to the other people who have provided leadership at the local level in this effort-Representative McLin, Dr. Newsome, and many, many others that I probably should mention but won't, to thank them for their getting this job done; and specifically Joe Flatter as chairman of the Greene County Commission as the man who rode shotgun on getting funding for the work done by Bob Schroeder, who is executive director of the county planning commission, who did the work on the infrastructure of the land availability, marking analyses that already has made a contribution to the Federal Government

because it was a lot of work that was done in effect for the original National Park Service study; along with Dr. Paul McStallworth's research and again the Greene County funding of his travel efforts for his study; and Dr. Lewis is a civic leader in Ohio and in fact the Nation. Her support of this undertaking has been truly significant. Finally, Senator, I have to say that even as Dr. McStallworth mentioned, the Indians I thought was helpful. We still have some people who go for that Indian culture. But Caesar, who happened to be black, was a slave, and one of the first known for Indian culture.

I want to express my personal appreciation to Senator Glenn for the original National Park Service study and getting the Senate interested in this legislation and working to get the funding for that study and helping get the study straightened out after it got off to a bad start originally and the work that you have done in helping to put together the legislation that we now have rather considerable support for from both the Senate and the House. I am very optimistic we will make some headway with your help and leadership in this project.

Senator GLENN. We will work together on this. We have worked together on it a long time. You have been at it longer than I. I hope the record made here this morning of some of the suggestions that came out I think earlier were very good. Maybe we can make a copoerative effort with a couple of these centers. I think maybe that was one approach. Some of the matching fund things that came out this morning I think were while not brand new nevertheless give us something else other than just the Park Service, which is something we might want to delve into. I appreciate your being here this morning.

Mr. FLATTER. I would like to comment, if I could. In addition to the comments Congressman Brown made in regards to the Indian culture, I forgot to include in our testimony, but I just came from the unveiling last night of the Bluejack Outdoor Drama that is going to be within a stone's throw of the site of the museum which depicts, very similar to the Tecumseh at Chillicothe, but it depicts the life of Caesar as a black slave who was adopted and fought with the Indians along with the Frenchmen. There is quite a lot of history involved in that. It couldn't be more fitting, I don't believe, to the history and background of the Black Afro-American History Museum at that same location. I think they would complement each other. That is in a go position right now. The land is available. The site is being readied for development. They plan to have their first show there in June 1981. That will seat about 2,000 people in an outdoor drama.

Senator GLENN. Thank you all very much.

The hearing will stand in recess subject to the call of the chair

man.

[Whereupon, at 1:03 p.m., the committee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of the chair.]