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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-24-06 (museum)The next item is the Museum operation and before we get into that I’d like to share with the Council and the public what I’ve read and what I think to be true about what’s happened since about 1986. In 1986, the current Mayor at that time, Gary Hancock, the Assistant Town Manager and other staff members went to Richmond, seeking funds for something called a Museum expansion. I read into that, the expansion from the basement of the Municipal Building to the Train Depot. At that time they were told that money wasn’t really available, but a lot of work and a lot of effort went into it and finally, the Train Station was refurbished and I think the movement from the basement over to there occurred somewhere about 1994… is that about right? Mr. Hawley: Yes sir, it opened up for the dedication of the Train Station on 6-11-94. Mayor continued: And all of that time from 1986 until about 1999, the best I can find in the records, is that it was strictly a Museum issue until the Director of the Fine Arts Center got involved with the Committee. And at that time, it evolved into a joint mission between the Fine Arts Center and the Museum folks. And they also discussed that what they would like to do, would be to buy the skating rink over here… not the whole thing, which consisted of approximately 35,000 sq. ft. And they decided that… they had divided it off into so many feet for the museum, so many feet for the Fine Arts Center and then in addition to that, in that 35,000 sq. ft was going to be some miniature skating rink. And then the next thing that popped up in the records is that… and I might add that all of these things seemed to be sanctioned by the Council, because the Mayor was involved in all of this, so I assume he was speaking for the Council, although I can’t find any record where there was actually voting… But then later on, shortly after that, it was decided that we can’t have a skating rink, because we need the 35,000 sq. ft. for the two entities. Then, I think the next Mayor that showed up in the record, was Mr. Graham, who said that the main focus when this started was the museum and now we seem to be more focused on the Fine Arts Center and we need to get some balance in this. I don’t know whether the Director of the Fine Arts Center spoke for the Board or spoke for himself, but he also has in the minutes, that we’re going to sell the Fine Arts Center on Main Street and use those monies to help offset the costs for this combined thing. But then it got, I guess in 1999 it was, we bought the Maple Shade, somewhere around there. Then it really started spiraling into the imaginative zone where we got Wiley and Wilson… drew up a set of plans and I think, according to the first generation of plans, it was to demolish the whole Maple Shade property and build this nice building over there and then a little bit later on, it came to light that the building was going… irrespective of what we spent out of grants and appropriations, it was going to cost approximately 4 ½ million dollars to build this building and I think at that time, the Council started questioning whether that was the right path to take. Furthermore, I think there was also going to be an additional cost of somewhere around 1 million dollars to put things inside this building… furnishings or whatever. And then, I guess the next Mayor that got involved was me and I think that I tried to convince everybody that if we owned the Maple Shade, we ought to put them in some part of the Maple Shade, because in my way of thinking, it probably would have been less expensive than building another building and I’m not sure we need another building here for the Town to take care of. I also did, this came from Sherry, so I wanted to share with everybody… these are, I would say these figures are probably 95% to 98% accurate, because there’s some question about how much we spent in matches. But to date, we’ve received $664,000 from TEA 21, and there’s a bunch of other appropriations, DHR, state appropriations, C. E. Richardson Foundation and a reimbursement from DEQ because of the tanks we removed out of the property over there… of $287,000. Now, of those things, the best I can figure out is we’ve spent $221,000 in the TEA 21 money and $13,000 from all of these other things, which leaves us approximately $599,000. We’ve spent, most of the money that’s been expended from those funds has been with the architectural firm. There’s been some things that we spent for other things, but they’re really in the noise in comparison. If we assume that we need a 14,000 sq. foot building to house these 2 entities, the best guess is it’s going to cost somewhere between 1.1 and 1.4 million dollars. And that doesn’t include what’s going to go inside them, nor the operating costs. If you look at what we’ve been able to get with the hard work of the Fine Arts Center in writing the grants, it would probably take us approximately, if we get grants at the same rate, about 5 years to get the money to do this thing. And the Town would have to match approximately $121,000, maybe $122,000. If we were to build just the Museum size that was speculated for just the Transportation Museum, and continuing to get grant money at the same rate we’ve been working at before, it would probably take a year. And the Town would have to support it at the neighborhood of $114,000 in matching funds. Additionally, I’d like to just comment on a letter we received in support of the… well it was one persons idea that we retain the museum where it is and we build a building for Doc Brockmeyer’s train. There are other things that have been donated to the Town like our first fire engine, and a hearse that Oscar Seagle said he wanted to put into this building… so I don’t know whether her intent was to just put the train in there or the rest of the things… Additionally, I’d like to just add that that letter indicates to Council that it’s the Committee speaking and Committee members have called me and said that that letter does not speak for their intent. They would prefer to either have, and this is just for the museum side, a building that will house all of these things as originally planned or to do nothing. By nothing, they mean, just leave it as it is and take care of the Train Station. I wanted to share that with you because I think it’s important that you know a little bit of the history of what’s been going on and hopefully, based on the information, you can make an intelligent decision of where you want to go in the future. And with that, I think that since this is a work session, if there’s anyone from the public that would like to comment, take issue with what I said, or anything else, come forward and say so now. Jeff Jones: I’m here as a taxpayer and also as representing the Board from GPA. I think the Fine Arts Center and the Museum are very much needed here. I think the Board agrees with that, but I think that we just have to be really conscious of, especially looking at the budget we have is how are we affecting the taxpayers? He advised that he could not forsee this project progressing without raising taxes, and that the people of the Town cannot handle a tax increase. He felt that more monies needed to be applied to the police department and to the infrastructure before proceeding with work on the Museum. Mrs. Jennifer White asked whether the Town had actually been given Dr. Brockmeyer’s train set? Mayor Wade said that it was his understanding that at one time, there was an agreement that’s gotten lost somewhere and another one is being generated. Mr. Hawley advised that the agreement had been sent back to Dr. Brockmeyer’s attorney for review. Mrs. White added that as a taxpayer, she would hate for us to build something for something we don't own or may not get. Mayor Wade: You can ask the same question about Oscar Seagle's hearse. His wife said that that's where he wanted it and that's where it will go, but we don't have any documentation there either. The only thing we have documentation on, to be honest with you is what people have actually donated to the Town that's over there and what people have lent to the Town and the first fire engine. It's here and we've had it for a long time and to my knowledge, for some years I didn't even know we had it, but it's now over there in the Maple Shade, which I guess eventually we'll have to move out. Wouldn't it be nice if we would restore it and drive it in the parades? Mayor Wade: Anyone else? Brett? Brett Whitesell: Is there any big hurry? Is there a deadline? Mayor Wade: Actually, there's not since we've been working on it since 1986. Mr. Whitesell: So why not give it a little more thought about what to do and where to go? Another question is what happens to the Train Station? I'd hate to see, first of all you've put all this money in the Train Station and then abandon it. Mayor Wade: I think one concern I have Brett… Mr. Whitesell: I thought there was something about moving the stuff out of the Train Station into whatever the structure would be. Is that correct? Mayor Wade: That's right, and in fact, in the 1986 trip to Richmond, Gary Hancock told the folks down there that the Train Station, when it was restored, was going to be the welcome center at the head of the Trail. And I think some of the Council members have embellished that somewhat and defined it as a welcome center, but as something maybe a little bit different than what you would expect. Many of us have different concerns I'm sure, but I don' think it's appropriate, personally, for us to continue holding a carrot out to the Fine Arts Center or to the Transportation Museum or anybody else for so long and not really getting on our horse and finishing this thing. So if we're not going to finish it…. And if we do decide to do that, then I think everybody needs to fully understand what it is that we're going to do. Mr. Whitesell: Do we? Mayor Wade: Well, I think the Council understands what it is that we're going to do. Jeff pointed out, I think earlier, that one of the obligations that we have as a Council is to use the money the taxpayers put in there for the best use that we have. And the questions that people ought to ask is do we have a safe place to live; is the infrastructure where it ought to be, and if not, if all those basic things that a government should be providing to its citizens are not there, then we need to take another look at what we're doing with our resources. That's it. Mr. Whitesell: Yeah, I think a hard look. I think you're right. Martha Bigger: If the Council chooses to not proceed with the Museum Fine Arts Center combination and the monies that have already been obtained from TEA 21 for that… would those then be returned and would the Town be responsible for paying back the money that's already been expended? Mayor Wade: Well certainly that's a reasonable question, and I guess the answer goes something like this and Mr. Hawley correct me if I'm wrong.. we don't really know the answer to that although, it seems to me that all the TEA 21 money that's been spent to date, has been spent because of a milestone that was established in that procedure. So therefore, since we did what we were told to do, my guess is that what we've spent to date would not have to be put back into the state coffers. But certainly what's remaining would have to go back, I would think. Now, one could argue about the Richardson Foundation… I don't know. Mr. Hawley: The TEA 21 money is reimbursable money, so the Town does not actually hold any of that money. The Town holds agreements with VDOT saying that money will be reimbursed the Town upon the Town spending it. The Town did spend $156,000 which was the first TEA 21 application for the development of the construction plans for the four million dollar complex the Mayor was talking about. That money was requested from VDOT and was reimbursed to the Town. But as the Mayor pointed out, it was clear that was for a phase 1 of development of construction plans for a building. Now whether, VDOT would say we met that requirement, that's something we'd have to negotiate and there might be some legal issues. The agreement the Town signed says that if the Town chooses to discontinue a project, the Town will be responsible for the costs incurred to date. Obviously the Town would try to negotiate with VDOT to keep from returning the $156,000. The remaining amount of $508,000 is money that is just designated. It is not held by the Town at this time. The other money from Historic Resources and state appropriations is held by the Town and Sherry tracks that. Again, we would have to determine with the state how that would be handled. Mayor Wade: But the match for the remaining money that's already been granted to us under TEA 21, and the monies that would have to be gotten to finish the project tho, unless we decide, which I don't think the Council will agree to using our limited resources in staff for in kind work, that's real dollars. You're talking about $120,000 or more that's real money. Mr. Hawley: Yeah. All the current agreements and applications said that the purchase price of the property, which was $209,000 plus interest would have been the match. It's a 20% match, so that's a little over one million dollars. Obviously, with the action previously by Council, that has gone away now. The Town no longer has a match and as the Mayor says, that becomes cash now. Well, it was cash then, it's spent by the Town, but now we're looking at it again. Mayor Wade: Any one else? Council? Councilman Worrell: Just a couple of things to add to the history lesson you gave us a few minutes ago. I think you were probably correct, it may have very well been '99. I think we met on one of the very last days of '98 and authorized the purchase of that, so it probably didn't happen til '99. And I think we got sidetracked shortly thereafter with this grand plan from Wiley and Wilson, the architects, but I think that came about because the then Director of the Fine Arts Center appeared before Council and assured us that there were funding sources available for that project and we could go with it. And of course, he's gone and apparently too are these funding sources. I think all along it's always been a grand plan of the combined museum and the Fine Arts Center complex. And I for one am not ready to give up on that yet. Now I think we are to a point where we need to sit down with the Fine Arts Center and the Museum and this Council and decide, you know, this is it, make a decision. I don't want it to go on like it's been going on for 20 years. I think it's time to sit down with those groups and make a decision. And it may not work out. There are a lot of obstacles that have to be overcome, but I'm not ready to give up on it. I still think we should pursue that. And I think that it's absolutely critical that we maintain the museum. Councilman Talbert: Well, I think Jeff made one point that we do need to do. We need to get all the groups together and finally decide where we want to go and what we want to do and get off the dime in that regard. And it needs to be a group decision and group discussion. Mayor Wade: Well that… that would really be great and I think I agree with you, but the fact of the matter is that.. I don't think I'm talking out of school here when I tell you that the Museum Committee is split. The Fine Arts Center is split on what they ought to do. And so, somebody's going to have to act like Solomon here and decide what we are going to do. And in my way of thinking, that's you six, right here. You need to make those decisions. Councilman Talbert: And ultimately you're right, but… Mayor Wade: But as far as sitting down and talking about it, I mean we've been talking about this issue for an awfully long time and it's time to really decide. Councilman Worrell: But you know, I don't recall a single time that… there's been a lot of… we haven't talked about it for a long time, but… And you've met with the Fine Arts Center or the Fine Arts Center Director has met with the Town Manager or any combination. I don't know of a time where the Town Council and the Fine Arts Board… Mayor Wade: They haven't. Councilman Worrell: Get all of them in the same room at the same time and then if we can't… I think if you can't reach a consensus, then I think everybody can get a feel for.. Mayor Wade: So maybe the next step would be to get the… spokesperson for the Museum and the spokesperson for the Fine Arts Center? Mr. Hawley: I think this initial time we need to bring as many of the groups together… I know it's harder with that, but I think there's been so many different versions of this thing and I don't think there's been any one reason that's happened. It's just one of these things that's just been going on for so long. There's been so many variations, so many versions, so many opinions of it… I think we need to sit everybody down and ultimately, Council's got to make the decision on what you're going to do with it… But, get everybody in one room. We'll have a little reception somewhere, sit down and talk and then go. And then Council at that point will have to make a decision what you want to do and decide at that point and time. Mrs. White: Can I ask a question? Would it be out of line to have a public meeting about this… that will affect the taxpayers? Mayor Wade and all Council agreed that it would be a public meeting. Councilman Burchett: One thing I want to throw out is that there's nothing that would prevent us from doing it in phases. If we had the money at some point, to do the Transportation Museum and start a building that could be eventually added on to, to include the Fine Arts Center when we accumulate money for that. That might be something to consider throwing out to the folks, if and when we do get all together. Mayor Wade: I think the other thing I'd just like to share with all of you… in 2004, we did vote on something that had to do with the combination of the two entities. And that had to do with, I think six milestones that the group, meaning the Museum and Fine Arts Center had to do and furthermore, it articulated what the Town's responsibility was going to be as far as follow on outlay of money. It said that we would provide utilities and I don't think that included electricity or telephone. It said that we would provide a dry space, in other words, building with heating and air conditioning and building insurance under the Town's umbrella. Those were the only things that this Council voted on. And I think that should be totally understood by the Museum and the Fine Arts Center in any future discussions, because I don't think, unless we decide to change what we already said we were going to do, that that's going to change in the future. Public: A suggestion was made for a survey to go out with the water bills for Wiredog. The same thing could be used for the Fine Arts Center/Museum. If you get both organizations together, I'm sure each one of them will want to pitch for their own agenda, but is it really what the people want and is it really bringing any additional revenue to the Town? When that money could be set aside to create new businesses instead of funding something that doesn't generate any money for the Town. Martha Bigger: Just out of curiosity, and assuming that everything that grant wise we get, we all, as taxpayers pay into. How much of Pulaski Town tax payers directly paid in money, has gone into this project? As a percentage? Or has there been any? Has it all been through grants, C. E. Richardson and that kind of thing. Because that could put a different outlook on how things are perceived. Mayor Wade: Well, I guess other than what portion of the grants that we paid in federal and state taxes, which I don't know how that gets divided up, probably neither do you. I don't think we've spent anything other than an awful lot of staff time.. at meetings and what have you. Mr. Hawley: There's actually one invoice for a newspaper advertisement for $156.00. As far as we can tell, that is the only actual hard cash that's been spent, but there has been a lot of staff time. Mr. White: There are, I think, two portions of this. One is the capital cost, for which we have solicited grant support and been fairly successful and then there is match. Some of that would indeed fall back to the taxpayers. The second issue is operations costs. I think one of the reasons we're probably having this discussion, was because of the presentation that Mr. Dills gave at our last Council meeting and suggested that the Town might end up spending $100,000 per year from taxpayer money to support this endeavor. So I think that the question of how much have we spent, isn't nearly as relevant as how much will we spend and do we have our arms around what the operational costs will be in perpetuity to the taxpayer and then the tradeoff becomes is the benefit that we would get financially or even emotionally, from having this, worth the cost to taxpayers that are facing so many other pressing needs as we've heard spoken about tonight. And that is our aging infrastructure, the fact that as a community, property values are going down, simply because the Town and its citizens are not keeping up property as we should be. So all of these issues are interrelated. And I really think that's the key question you were getting at Martha, and that is we're going to have to sort this out in terms of what is in the best interest of the Town of Pulaski at this moment in its history. And it's been a difficult week for us and Pulaski Furniture having to face 119 people being lay off and that's going to ripple through our tax structure as well. Mayor Wade: I think Dr. White's correct. I think in the Business plan, it indicated that the operating expenses for this 14,000 square foot building would be $264,000… Mr. Hawley: I met with Mr. Dills this week and he's revising some of the costs and operating costs on that, we've already begun working on that part of it too. Again, to try to get a handle. It is two issues. The capital, which is going to be hopefully grant money and maybe some Town in kind contributions. The really question is long term operating costs. What it's going to cost… there's going to have to be money budgeted to operate a Museum/Fine Arts Center complex, there's not doubt about that. You don't construct a building and not have operating costs. So there will be operating costs to it. So we are trying to revise the numbers down. I think the numbers we saw in that initial thing were not very realistic. And we are trying to get those down. Mayor Wade: How's that going to exceed what we already voted on? We already voted on what we would budget.. Mr. Hawley: Basically, that's what the plan is being revised back to show… is where the Town contribution was shown as $100,000, the Town's contribution is going to come back down to water, sewer, insurance… whatever that works out to be…$10,000, $15,000. Mayor Wade: And then that begs the question, okay if you have a $264,000 need, can you raise that yearly? Edna Isbill: I'd like to answer Mr. Burchett's question. You mentioned possibly starting with the museum. One of your largest expenses that you're going to have are the staff. You can't have a TEA 21 grant without having the staff to run whatever you're building. And the Fine Arts Center is providing the staff to run it. We already have staff on board and that was one of the initial reasons that this was put together. So if you go with the museum, you're going to have to hire someone to run that. That was in the agreement - that the Fine Arts Center would staff it, run it and supervise it. Councilman Burchett: That's new information for us, right? Mayor Wade: Well, you know, you've got in the business plan, unless that changes, you've got 7 paid employees. Mr. Hawley: We also talked about that too and the revision of it. And trying to understand that maybe in an ideal situation it would be nice to have that, but in the real world, in trying to finance it, that's not going to happen. My direction to Mr. Dills was that there would be no staff increase. It would be whatever the budget is for the Fine Arts Center right now for their current staffing. Possibly, a part time person. So the direction we're heading now is no increase in staff. Now whether that's realistic or not… maybe somewhere in between. You will have to determine that. Edna Love: Mr. Mayor, I would like to encourage getting the group together. I have learned some things tonight that I was not aware of and I feel like that maybe there are some other people of the say way and maybe it would be good that we could get together and see what we can come up with that would be of value. No one has said anything about the quality of life and while the arts do not bring in a lot of money, it certainly does make a lot of difference in communities where the quality of life is something that affects everybody. And I didn't want to bring that up tonight where we're talking about money, but we need not forget that and so I would like to see us get together on what's been said here tonight and see if it's possible that we could come up with something that would be of value to the community. Mayor Wade: I don't disagree with that and I think we should plan some kind of a public forum to discuss this. Quality of life means many things to many people. One of them is having a job. Council: where do you want to go with this? Council was agreeable to the meeting. Mayor Wade: I think my only desire if I can say that is that I hope that we don't go another five years before we put this one to bed. Man from public: Let me ask you'll one question. You'll keep talking about the Museum and the Fine Arts Center. Seems like by what you'll are saying, they cannot get together on it. The Museum where it is now is a nice building. It holds the history to the Museum. Wouldn't it be easier to add on to that building if you had to for the Museum to put this fire truck and this hearse and a couple of other things that are supposed to be given to you'll and put the Fine Arts Center on the vacant lot down here on Main Street. There's a nice vacant lot there that would be perfect for the Fine Arts Center. It could be put up in metal and save the taxpayers and the town a lot of money. Mayor Wade: That's certainly a consideration and I think that's one that ought to be discussed in the public forum. I think in the end, what we've got to do is what's best for the majority of our citizens and that's the objective of having a public meeting to get everybody together. Mr. Hawley: I think from staff, we'd also like GPA to assist us in getting the word out and having this public meeting. If they would agree to do that. Mayor Wade: Could you not put that in the water bills too, John? Mr. Hawley: We only have 3 lines on this water bill, so it might be… Mayor Wade: Just put another flyer in it. Mr. Hawley: We can add that to the envelope. We will hold this meeting as soon as possible too. If any Council has any conflicts in the next two weeks, let's try to get this done in the next two weeks. My intent would be to do this within 2 weeks.