[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 10 (Thursday, February 3, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S974]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                PRESERVING CALIFORNIA'S MISSION HERITAGE

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, last week I had the pleasure of joining 
members of the California Missions Foundation at Mission San Diego to 
celebrate the passage of the California Missions Preservation Act, 
which became law in 2004.
  In opening the celebration, Missions Foundation Executive Director 
Knox Mellon expressed his gratitude to the Senate and House for passing 
the Missions Preservation Act, which will help my State preserve a 
priceless element of our historical and cultural heritage.
  By way of expressing my own gratitude to you and our colleagues, I 
want to share some of Mr. Mellon's remarks with you:

       There is a tendency for me to believe the primary 
     beneficiary of the legislation Senator Boxer both carried and 
     succeeded in getting signed by the President would be the 
     California Missions Foundation because it acts as a conduit, 
     a pass-through for directing monies to each of the twenty-one 
     historic missions. But the real beneficiaries are the people 
     not only of California but the nation. The missions are 
     California's Pyramids. They are a part of our past. They help 
     symbolize the nation's western beginnings.
       Of all the institutions that define California's heritage, 
     none has the historic significance and emotional impact of 
     the chain of Spanish missions that stretch from San Diego to 
     Sonoma. The missions are an important part of the state's 
     cultural fabric and must be preserved as priceless historic 
     monuments.

  I thank our colleagues in Congress, particularly Senator Dianne 
Feinstein and Representatives Sam Farr and David Dreier, who worked 
diligently to see this bill signed into law. I also thank Governor 
Arnold Schwarzenegger for his support.
  And finally, I thank Knox Mellon and the California Missions 
Foundation Board for their strong dedication to this cause. Through the 
collaboration of Federal, State, and private efforts, our missions have 
hope for the future.

                          ____________________