Free rent for private parties?

As reported in prior posts, the Arizona Historical Society has two facilities in metropolitan Phoenix. One is the former mineral museum building at 1502 West Washington Street. It now stands empty, providing no service whatever to Arizona taxpayers.

The other is the Marley Center Museum in Tempe. The AHS prefers to call it the Papago Park Museum, even though they accepted one million dollars from Kemper Marley for naming rights. The museum displays are not maintained, and attendance is so embarrassingly low the AHS will not release the attendance numbers.  The most prominent feature is a cocktail bar, and the primary use of the property appears to be a venue for private parties.

In spite of the AHS providing little value to taxpayers in return for millions of dollars of state funding, they managed to elicit a big reward from the 2012 legislature: free rent for the huge Marley Center "Museum".  

Reference:
2012 Legislative Summary

ARIZONA STATE SENATE

Fiftieth Legislature, Second Regular Session, Page 7

S.B. 1525 makes statutory and session law changes relating to state budget procedures in order to reconcile the FY 2013 state budget. State Buildings/Rent – Effective January 1, 2013, the bill exempts the Arizona State Schoolsfor the Deaf and the Blind and the Arizona Historical Society’s Papago Park Museum from paying Capital Outlay Stabilization Fund (COSF) rent to the Arizona Department of Administration (ADOA).