Mayor Muriel Bowser presented her 2026 fiscal year budget, which avoids severe cuts but may eliminate a planned new building for the DC State Archives. Currently housed in a small stable, the archives' relocation plan is now to divide its contents between the Charles Sumner School and a warehouse. Critics like archivist Trudy Peterson warn this could jeopardize the documents' integrity and public access, while Bowser cites cost overruns as a driving factor. The budget allocated for a UDC facility may be redirected to student housing instead.
"Currently, the more than 45,000 cubic feet of documents are shelved in an old horse stable in Shaw, a repository that is small and inaccessible to the public."
"Trudy Peterson, an archivist and a former director of the National Archives, says carting the records...could damage them; the distribution would also render the archives much less accessible to the public."
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