By John Kiesewetter
Enquirer staff writer

WEST CHESTER TWP. - The Greater Cincinnati Foundation has reversed itself, and sent a $40,000 check to the Veterans' Voice of America Fund for a VOA museum elevator.

In March, the foundation had offered a $40,000 grant on condition that township trustees pass a park levy in the next year. But trustees had no plans to put another park tax on the ballot after the crushing defeat of a five-year, 1.95-mill issue last November.

Township Trustee Catherine Stoker, an officer of the VOA group, said a check from the foundation arrived in June.

"The only restriction is that it must be used for the elevator. They no longer expect us to pass a park levy," she said.

The all-volunteer organization still must raise $60,000 to pay for design and construction of an elevator shaft, and the purchase of an elevator, she said.

Part of the November park levy would have funded a Voice of America museum in the two-story yellow brick building on 330 acres of park property on Tylersville Road. The U.S. began broadcasting news and programming to Europe, South America and Africa in 1944 from the Bethany station.

The VOA will house three museums - the Gray Wireless antique radio collection previously displayed at WGUC-FM; the Media Heritage collection by WVXU-FM staffers Mike Martini and Mark Magistrelli, and an amateur radio museum. Last month, a 1950s Radio Free Europe studio from Germany was donated to the Voice of America museum by Stanford University.

E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com