On high alert for historical infrastructure problems
Fred Caesar is on a mission to preserve historic sites in Butler County for future generations, which he feels can learn much from the past.
Caesar, president of the Friends of Saxonburg Museum, said the demise of aging infrastructure such as the John Roebling Wirerope Workshop in Saxonburg has the potential end to the stories these sites have to tell.
Caesar recently has been advocating an idea that could help not just the Roebling workshop, but other historical sites like it in Butler County.
“There is a need for aging historical infrastructure in the Butler County area,” Caesar said. “I was trying to come up with a way we could move some of the hotel tax and take a percentage of it and use it to put together a pool of money that could then be allocated based on the county commissioners to help maintain the historical infrastructure.”
Butler County has a 5% tax that is added to the cost of hotel rooms in the county.
County Treasurer Diane Marburger said 96% of the hotel tax goes the Butler County Tourism & Convention Bureau, and the other 4% goes to the county.
In 2022, the hotel tax grossed $2.4 million Marburger said, with almost $100,000 of that going to the county.
Caesar has met multiple times with the Butler County commissioners where he has advocated for money to help the infrastructure at the Roebling workshop, but he does see a need beyond Saxonburg.
“My approach to the county commissioners was not solely for Saxonburg,” Caesar said. “I was speaking for the whole county, because we need to come up with priorities.”
County Commissioner Leslie Osche said that the county hotel tax is fairly well tied up according to statutes, so she doesn’t know if that’s an option to help Caesar’s cause.
“The hotel tax proceeds are deployed based on the size and class of your county,” Osche said. “We are a fourth-class county. Some of the higher classes have an ability to use some of those funds for economic development and other things.”
Undaunted, Caesar has began looking in other directions to help find money for his project and others like it.
“We may find out that there is another formula that we can put together,” Caesar said. “One of the goals in proposing the way I did is I do not want to see any money taken away from any social service programs to go for history. We need every dime we can to go towards social service needs in the county. That's why I turned to the hotel tax.”
Jack Cohen, president of the Butler County Tourism & Convention Bureau said the bureau offers grants to its members which can be used for whatever they see fit for their tourism business or organization.
“We do grants every year for $5,000 for improvements like that but (Caesar) never asked,” Cohen said. “All you have to do is fill out the papers and send them in.”
Caesar said improvements to the foundation of the Roebling workshop would exceed upward of $250,000, well above the grants given out by the tourism bureau.
“We’re beyond the $5,000 grants,” Caesar said. “That’s great to get in small ways, but we are talking of expenses that are way beyond those types of grants. We are talking significant dollars.”
Cohen said he wishes he could help allocate money from the bureau to assist with historical infrastructure because he also sees it as a growing problem, but if he helps one of the bureau’s roughly 400 members, he would have to then help all them.
“There’s no question if it’s historical, it can’t go away,” Cohen said. “It’s very important for the history to tell the story. When we send people to a museum like (Roebling), it’s a beautiful museum and what (Caesar) is talking about is very important.”
Osche said there are grants available that could help Caesar and those in similar situations, but there would need to be some money raised upfront, which would be matched.
“The other part of those grants is a match requirement and, in addition, you have to cash-flow it,” Osche said. “If they don’t have the cash on the front end that’s where we can be helpful. That’s what our parks do is cash-flow it on the front end, then get reimbursed on the back end.”
Caesar was invited to testify at an America 250PA‘s Infrastructure Improvements and Projects Committee hearing on June 16.
“I wanted to make sure the committee was aware of our project needs,” Caesar said. “In reading their mission plan, they’re running for 2026 to promote and have people be aware of the educational side of the commonwealth’s history.
“They were very receptive towards the history part of this and see the need. However, I am probably one of 100 that they would have to pick through.”
Caesar’s overall goal he said is to bring attention to this issue before it becomes too hard to fix.
He realizes that this is going to take some time, but he simply just wants to get the conversation moving at this point.
“There is going to have to be discussions and compromises,” Caesar said. “I don’t want us to lose sight of what our goal, which is to save what is the historical significance of Butler County for future generations so they know about our history.”
