The Democrat-Gazette has reported that, to date, the city of North Little Rock has spent $2.8 million on the vessels at the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum (including associated expenses for bringing the Arkansas Queen riverboat, a private business enterprise, here). Apparently the AIMM is averaging about 30 visitors a day. Max Brantley over at the Arkansas Times blog is critical of this, as he has been of Pat Hays' little flotilla (and other of the mayor's policies), and brings up the spectre of more derelicts being added to the riverfront. The USS Hoga tub that was at Pearl Harbor is still sitting in a mothball facility in California, and the USS Orleck destroyer is being evicted from its current home in Texas (but apparently a Louisiana town is also calling for dibs on it). The Orleck, as DJ Smith reported in The North Little Rock Times previously, has an "alumni association" that is willing to pony up money for the annual maintenance and upkeep of the vessel if it comes here, but who's to say if it will prove to be enough money. And what happens when the veterans who served on the Orleck have all passed away -- who will pony up the payments then?

So, chime in, folks! Has this $2.8 million (mostly in sales tax money) been spent wisely? Would it have been better used for other things? Do you visit the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum? (While I've been on the deck of the Razorback, while writing about it shortly after its arrival, I've never been inside.) Do you support an expansion of this as a tourist attraction, or should the fleet be disbanded and shipped elsewhere (at a cost, of course)?

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